MacLinkPlus Deluxe 10 Ships -- It may no longer be bundled with the Mac OS, but MacLinkPlus hasn't disappeared. DataViz has now released MacLinkPlus Deluxe 10.0, the latest version of the venerable file translation utility. The new version adds new translators for Word 98 and Excel 98, decoding capabilities for a variety of Internet compression and encoding formats generally found in email, and contextual menu support for all of MacLinkPlus's functions. A new interface supports drag & drop, offers information about files of unknown provenance, and enables you to view graphics and text in files. Upgrades cost $40 and new versions cost $99.

Two problems have surfaced since the release, including a crash related to trying to save or open a file in ClarisWorks 5 using MacLinkPlus. DataViz recommends a workaround of translating files outside of ClarisWorks 5, and notes that to translate ClarisWorks 5 files to another format, you must first save them as ClarisWorks 4 files. Also, the MacLinkPlus installer incorrectly installs the Contextual Menu Enabler extension, which can cause trouble for some users. Although that extension is required by Apple Internet Address Detectors (IAD) 1.0.1 and should remain if you've previously installed IAD, DataViz recommends all other MacLinkPlus users disable the Contextual Menu Enabler extension. [ACE]

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