Table of Contents
A) Downloading Multiple from ConfTool Pro
     1. Reviewers and PC members
     2. Administrators and Chairs
     3. Hints
     4. Generate Filenames for the Downloads
B) Downloading Files Using Browser Add-ons (for ConfTool Standard & Special Characters)
     1. Firefox/Chrome and "DownThemAll"
     2. Firefox and "Download Star"
     3. Chrome and "Chrono"

Downloading Multiple Files from ConfTool

You can easily download single files from ConfTool by clicking on the corresponding links or the icons before them. If you want to download several uploaded files in one go, there are two different options. The first one - downloading multiple files as a ZIP-file - exists only for ConfTool Pro, the second one - using an external application - can be used for all versions of ConfTool.

As an administrator, chair or reviewer, you might want to download several files in one go.
Please follow our step by step instruction for the different user groups: reviewers / members of the program committee or administrators and chairs.

3. Hints

• You get access to additional filter options when you click on "Show more filter options".
• When you use the filter "Select Version", you can also filter by "Accepted Contributions with final uploads", e.g. if you want to download final, camera-ready copies.
• The files will be compressed and stored as a single ZIP file. To decompress the file, you can use for example the open source software 7-Zip for Windows.
• Please note that file names in ZIP files can use 8-Bit ASCII characters only. That means that only latin characters, numbers and frequently used special characters are supported. Usually you can also use ISO-8859-1 characters, but even they may cause problems. If you use the "generated filenames" of ConfTool and the files have other characters than latin in your file names (Chinese, Arabic, Japanese etc.), please use "DownThemAll" as described below instead of using the ZIP download.

4. Generate Filenames for the Downloads

Please be advised that administrative users can also automatically generate filenames for all downloads on the overview lists according to a pattern specified in ConfTool.

Go to this page:
Overview => Settings => Main Settings for Paper and Abstract Submission

In the section "Defaults for Uploads and Downloads" you can find the option "Compose format of generated filenames" for which you can define the name for paper downloads.
You can update this setting at any time.

If you have to download many files at once (e.g. PDF documents) and the above recommended ZIP functions are not available or cause problems because of special characters in your file names, we recommend to use one of the 3 browser add-ons below. They allow to download many files from a webpage quickly without further interaction.

Unfortunately, the add-ons differ from browser to browser. To users of Mozilla Firefox or Chrome we recommend the well-proven add-on DownThemAll, which can also be used with alternative browsers like Waterfox Classic or Pale Moon. For Mozilla Firefox (Version 57 or later) we recommend the extension Download Star. Users of Chrome get the option to download multiple files with the extension „Chrono“.

1. Downloading Multiple Files Using the Add-on "DownThemAll"

DownThemAll is a well-proven add-on for downloading multiple files in one step. It is available for the Mozilla Firefox and Chrome browsers. A slightly more comprehensive version of DownThemAll, which uses the XUL interface, is available for the Waterfox Classic browser. Please install the add-on first. We provide a download link for the Waterfox Classic add-on at https://www.conftool.net/ct_download/downthemall-3.0.8-fx+sm.xpi

Then follow our step by step instruction on how to download multiple files with DownThemAll:

1. Login to your ConfTool account.
2. Go to the according page, for instance, the list of all reviews assigned to you, or the list of all submissions (if you are a chair or admin). Please note that you can access all files at once if you set “Per Page” to “All” for overview lists. In ConfTool Pro you can also choose a method for the file names (see image 6).
3. Start "DownThemAll" from the "Tools" menu (or "Extra" menu) of your browser.
4. Create a subfolder in your local download directory where the downloaded files should be saved (see image 4).
5. Set a filter for your downloads:
   a) For instance select "Documents" and "Archives" if you want to download all PDF and text files as well as all compressed files (see image 4).
   b) You can also set a filter by file extension: Enter the filter "*.pdf|*.doc|*.ppt|*.rtf|*.docx|*.odf" to download the corresponding file types only.
   c) If you want to download all PDF files in their anonymized form from the overview list, enter Contrib*.pdf.
6. Start the download.

2. Downloading Multiple Files Using Firefox and the Add-on "Download Star"

Download Star is available for Firefox browsers version 57 and later. Please go to the “Add-ons” page of your browser and then search for “Download Star” to install this addon (see Image 5). Then please follow our step by step instruction on to download multiple documents with this add-on.

1. Login to your ConfTool account.
2. Go to the according page, for instance, the list of all reviews assigned to you, or the list of all submissions (if you are a chair or admin). Please note that you can access all files at once if you set “Per Page” to “All” for overview lists. In ConfTool Pro you can also choose a method for the file names (see image 6).
3. Select the item “Download Star” from the „Tools“ menu of your Firefox browser (see image 7).
4. Use the "Built-In Filters“ and select "Document“. Also, please select the icon "Show media from links“ (image 8: chain icon at the lower left corner).
5. Alternatively you can use regular expressions to filter out the required documents (see image 7).
6. Finally, please select a target folder in the text field at the top of the add-on (see image 9).
7. To start the download of the selected files, please click on download icon at the top right (the number shows how many files will be downloaded). The downloaded files will be saved in to your “Downloads” folder, the program automatically creates the target folder.

3. Downloading Multiple Files Using Chrome and the Add-on "Chrono"

If you are using the browser Google Chrome, we can recommend the add-on Chrono Download Manager if you want to download multiple files from the web in one go. Please open the Chrono Download Manager page in the Chrome web store with your Chrome browser and click on “Add to Chrome” to install the add-on.

To proceed downloading several documents from ConfTool, please

1. Login to your ConfTool account.
2. Go to the according page, for instance, the list of all reviews assigned to you, or the list of all submissions (if you are a chair or admin). Please note that you can access all files at once if you set “Per Page” to “All” for overview lists. In ConfTool Pro you can also choose a method for the file names (see image 6).
3.  In the tool bar at the top of your Chrome browser please select the “Chrono” icon to switch to Chrono Sniffer (image 10).
4. To download submissions, please click on tab Document, and additionally define which file types you want to be saved (for instance “pdf” and/or “docx”). To complete this task please click on Download All. The files will be downloaded to your “downloads” folder.

If you want to change the download directory, please go to “Settings” in Chrome and choose “Downloads”, then you get the option to define a new download location (image 11).