Publication 17 (Your Federal Income Tax) as a PDF file has 322 pages and is about 2 meg. If, as you read it online, you want to print parts of it, be sure to use the Adobe Reader's print symbol--I've found that makes it easier to select and print than to use the browser symbol or dropdown print command.

Publication 501 (Exemptions, Standard Deduction, and Filing Information) that I mentioned above isn't nearly so large, at 197k and 24 pages.

Despite my complaints about the efficacy of information when one calls the IRS (I haven't tried in years--do they even have people you can call any more?), the development of access to the forms and publications online via PDF was a profound move for this agency. It has been quite a few years now that I've been retreiving forms online, but I don't have to work very hard to remember how amazing it was to find that first form online and print it on demand, not to have to jump through the hoops of writing away for the what I needed or visiting the local library and queing at the copier to photocopy the master pages from the big binder of forms they kept handy. We have a large table full of publications and forms at the university library where I work, and I haven't asked our gov docs librarian if he has seen a change is usage, but I'm sure there is one and that it is remarkable.

My local post office right now has a bedraggled and incoherent collection of forms and publications (none of the big ones), and a sign on the wall saying that they don't have any 1040 forms. I suggested to the guy who is in charge of the lobby that they add the web site address to that sign. His response was that "the people who come here looking for forms don't have computers or know how to use them." Then it seems all the more important that they make sure that the basics are readily available at this kind of contact point. Otherwise it's just for show.

SRS