The recommended way of installing user-written ado-files is via one
of -net from-, or -ssc- (although you can use -findit- as a
roundabout way of finding the package you are after).
You have email access so I would recommend that you attach the
computer to the internet connection and then...
. ssc install psmatch2
However, if for whatever reason you can not physically connect the
computer to the internet you could try saving the files directly from...
...saving them to your local ado path. What your local ado path is
depends on your operating system which you have not indicated.
The two problems that may occur when downloading SSC files with a web
browser are
1) the .ado file may contain long lines that are inadvertently
wrapped when you save the file to your desktop. That will probably
cause a syntax error message in Stata. You can fix it by going
through the code and looking for lines that have been broken.
Alternatively 'set trace on' and run the routine. It will show you
where the (first) error is.
2) If you are using Windows, the .hlp file is considered a Windows
help file, a binary file type. Some universities' and companies'
firewalls prohibit the downloading (or emailing!) of such files by
Windows users. I suppose you could display the file in your web
browser and cut and paste it to a text editor, rather than (trying
to) save it to your desktop, but that might be tedious. Or, save it
to your desktop as something that Windows and your firewall will not
recognize as binary, such as .txt.
Since some SSC packages have many, many files associated with them
(and some of those nowadays are indeed binary--such as Mata object
libraries, not relevant for Stata 8) I would recommend finding a
machine with Internet access, using Stata on that machine (even if
you have to temporarily install Stata there) to do the 'ssc
install...' steps, and then copying items you have installed from ~/
ado/plus on that machine to the machine lacking internet access. You
could just zip the entire ~/ado/plus directory and move it over to
the other machine with a flash drive or whatever, and merge the
contents with ~/ado/plus on the target machine.
