Baltimore County Circuit Court  Suzanne Mensh, Clerk of the Circuit Court County Courts Building  401 Bosley Ave.  Towson, MD 21204  (410) 887-2642  e-mail: circuitcourt@co.ba.md.us

Welcome to the Baltimore County Plats.net System. Below are Frequently Asked Questions to help you use the system to its fullest advantage.

1.  What is incorporated in this system?
2.  Is this system available over the Internet?
3.  If I have the Court's filing number, how do I quickly access the plat image?
4.  If I do not have the filing number, can I search the system?
5.  What printing options are available?
6.  Can I enlarge an area of the image for viewing and printing?
7.  The quality of the image I am viewing is not acceptable. What can be done?
8. There are plats in the system that do not link to an image. Why?
9. Instead of getting an image, my browser shows an icon of a broken piece of film. What is this?
10. When I select a plat to view, the image opens through my SwiftView plug-in, and I receive a message that the site does not have a license with SwiftView. How do I correct this?
11. When I click on the image link, no image opens and/or I get an error message. Why?
12. When I view the plat image, the background color is a light yellow. How can I fix this?
13. I am an America Online™ user. How should I configure my system in order to view plats online?

The goal of the Maryland State Archives' Geographical Services program is to capture and identify all plats that exist for Baltimore County. Future enhancements will include plats recorded in agencies other than the Baltimore County Circuit Court and selected historical maps from the Archives.

The main page lists all the primary series from which the plat images and the descriptions were compiled. These include the collections of subdivision and condominium plats as well as the collection of plats from land records. In many cases, there exists more than one copy of a plat filing. The source for every image is identifed. Links from the series numbers will take you to a detailed analysis of content, scope, and arrangement of that collection.

The main search page for the system has a box for the book and page number as assigned by the Baltimore County Circuit Court. Entering the citation and pushing the search button will return a table listing all records that matched the search criteria. From this page, you can select the image you want to view by using the link on the far right. This returns a page with more detail about the selected plat and the link to the image file. The link from the image file will open the image within the web browser (if configured using Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 as the computer in the Court) or an associated program for viewing TIFF images.

The "advanced search" feature on the main page will allow you to search the entire collection. You may enter any portion of the title of the plat in the field marked "description." Searches are also allowed against the filing date of the plat, in 'yyyy/mm/dd' format. In either case, the search will return a list of results in groups of 30, from the most recent filing to the earliest.

Court patrons have the option to print either 11" x 17" or large format "to scale" copies.

Yes.  When an image is open in the browser, you can use the imaging toolbar to zoom in on a particular lot or area of the plat.  Zoom in on the portion of the plat that you would like to print.  Keep in mind that the resolution of the capture will be limited by the screen resolution, not the resolution of the actual image file.

Also, the workstations connected to HP Laser Jets in the Land Records department at the Courthouse have image capture software installed. To operate this software when viewing a plat, follow these steps:

1. Using the magnifying glass button on the image viewer, zoom to the size you wish to capture.
2. Press the "F7" key. This will turn your mouse cursor from a hand to a target or "crosshair."
3. Starting at the upper left corner of the image, click and pull the mouse to the lower right corner. You should see a box being drawn on the screen.
4. When you let go of the mouse button, the image starts to print. The image printed will be the image captured within the box you drew above. If you make a mistake, the debit card software will allow you to "cancel" the print and return to the image.
5. Pressing the print button will send the image to the HP. The quality of the image will be limited by the screen and printer resolution.

On any PC, you can use the following method to print only an enlarged portion of a plat:

1. Zoom in on a particular lot or area of the plat.
2. Hold down both the "alt" and the "print screen" keys.
3. Go to the Start button and open Word Pad under "Programs--Accessories."
4. Now, press both the "shift" and the "insert" keys.  The screen capture will appear in the Word Pad window.
5. You can print the image from the Word Pad file. The quality of the image will be limited by the screen and printer resolution.

Please use the link at the bottom of the page to send an email to the Geographic Services department at the Archives. Staff there will attempt to capture the image as a direct scan. The new image generally will be available on the system within 24 hours.

Yes. The World Wide Web address from your home or office is www.plats.net. The website requires the use of a username and password. Access can
be granted with the username: plato and the password: plato#

The system over the Internet is identical to the system installed in the Courthouse.

The Archives' appraisal of the Circuit Court's plat collections identified many unique items that were never transferred to the Archives. As these items come into the Archives custody, they will be added to the system. In the meantime, these entries provide index access to the materials. Some series, such as patents, are scheduled to be added at a later date, after the basic system is available in all 24 jurisdictions.

The Archives designed the Plats.net System to deliver Group IV TIFF images of plats over the Internet. Group IV is a standard type of TIFF image. A free viewer that is installed with the full version of Windows 95/98 is located in your c:\windows directory (either Kodak Imaging or Wang Imaging depending on the version of Windows that you are running). This program is a generic TIFF viewer that will support the Group IV files that we deliver in the system.

The problem causing the broken piece of film icon results from a conflict with Apple's Quicktime version 4 installed on your computer. This installation changes the file associations in your web browser for TIFFs to the Quicktime software. Unfortunately, Quicktime 4 does not support Group IV TIFF images. To correct the problem, you need to change the associations for TIFF images back to the standard imaging program (or any image viewer that you may have that supports Group IV TIFF images). Instructions on how to modify Quicktime's associations can be found at Apple's website:

http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n36508

This document will provide step-by-step instructions for removing the Quicktime association with Group IV Tiff images. After completing the steps, shut down the browser. The next time you download a plat from our PLATO system, you should be asked which viewer you wish to use for TIFF images. Select a viewer that supports Group IV images. This should resolve the problem.

You can also refer to "Quick Time and Viewing Tif Images" on the Maryland State Archives website.

The problem you are experiencing appears to be a conflict between the SwiftView software installed on your computer and Kodak Imaging.

The Archives designed the Plats.net System to deliver Group IV TIFF images of plats over the Internet. Group IV is a standard type of TIFF image. A free viewer that is installed with the full version of Windows 95/98 is located in your c:\windows directory (either Kodak Imaging or Wang Imaging depending on the version of Windows that you are running). This program is a generic TIFF viewer that will support the Group IV files that we deliver in the system.

You may need to deinstall SwiftView so that the plat images open automatically in Kodak Imaging. Instructions and technical support for deinstalling SwiftView are available at:

http://www.swiftview.com/tech/forceinstall.htm

Once you have completed the deinstall, you should be able to open the plat images without receiving the message that the site does not have a license with SwiftView.

The problem you are experiencing relates to software association. The Archives designed the Plats.net System to deliver Group IV TIFF images of plats over the Internet. Group IV is a standard type of TIFF image. A free viewer that is installed with the full version of Windows 95/98 is located in your c:\windows directory (either Kodak Imaging or Wang Imaging depending on the version of Windows that you are running). This program is a generic TIFF viewer that will support the Group IV files that we deliver in the system.

In order to make sure that your software is associated with Kodak Imaging, follow the instructions below.

1. Go to the start button and select "Find" then "Files or Folders."
2. In the "Name" location type "*.tif."
3. In "Look in:" choose the location you want to search.
4. At the bottom a list of files will appear.
5. Left click the mouse once to highlight the file. Hold down the shift key, right click the mouse and choose "Open with."
6. Select "Kodakimg," check the box at the lower left and click "OK."
7. Your image should now be associated with Kodak Imaging.

You can also refer to "How to View Tif Files" on the Maryland State Archives website.

If the plat image background is a light yellow, then the color management option is enabled. In order to view the plat with a white background, you will need to disable color management by following the instructions below.

1. Once you've opened the plat image, go to the "File" menu on the toolbar.
2. Under "File" menu, select "Color Management."
3. The box for "Enable Color Management" should not be checked. If it is, simply click inside the box to clear it.
4. Click "OK" to exit the "Color Management" menu.

1. Load the newest version of Internet Explorer (5.0 or 5.5) or Netscape Navigator.
2. Start AOL.
3. Minimize the AOL window.
4. Start and then use Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator.
5. You should now be able to use PLATO through your AOL connection.