This software is "freeware" and may be freely distributed provided that this file is included with the application and that neither the application nor this file are modified in any way.
What PICT Filter does
PICT Filter is a small application which filters the PICT resources of any file to make them smaller and render faster when drawing to the screen. In my own informal tests, PICT resources were reduced in size by as much as 75% and rendered up to two or three times faster.
Whatユs removed from the pictures
Most drawing applications produce pictures that contain a lot of extra information which is intended to help PostScriptェ printers do a better job of printing the picture. These "extras" consist of invisible drawing commands and PostScriptェ drawing commands hidden in picture comments. PICT Filter finds and removes these from the picture which then allows Quickdraw to process the picture more quickly since there is less data that it has to deal with.
How to use PICT Filter
To filter the PICT resources of a file, drag and drop the file on the PICT Filter application. Alternatively, you can open the application and open the file(s) using the "Filterノ" command under the file menu. As each file is filtered, a dialog will inform you of its success and tell you how many PICT resources were found in that file.
Whatユs new in version 1.0.2
Version 1.0.1 was a "loose nut on the keyboard" release - I selected the wrong copy of the application when I was creating the archive. Do not use version 1.0.1 - it will convert all of your Type I and Type II pictures into empty pictures. It works fine for Extended Type II pictures.
Version 1.0.2 fixes some minor problems in version 1.0 and also adds some minor features. These changes include:
- Version 1.0 converted all pictures to the Extended Type II format. Version 1.0.1 preserves the original version of the picture
- A dialog is now displayed after the conversion to let you know that everything went ok (or failed). Because the filtering process doesnユt take very long, it sometimes seems like the program did nothing at all which is why I added this dialog.