With Servant 9.2 you can edit the icon of a floppy or a hard disk with a simple menu command. Andy says the 'real Servant' will be out by MacWorld Boston time.
To make it fit on one page if your document is just a line or two too long, try this.
Click on a blank line. Hit the spacebar and highlight the space (drag over it). Change the type size for this space several points smaller. The space for the line will shrink accordingly. Seveal of these will take up enough space to let your document fit a single page.
It's better to reduce several lines one point that one line a dozen points!
Avery to the rescue! Avery is now making a removable label for disks. It is Avery S-2448, 1-1/2" by 3". It takes pen or pencil and is just the right stickiness to hang on when you want it to and peel off when you need to change labels.
Does everyone know that Sony labels, which come with their disks in boxes of 10, are great in this respect? They stay nicely -- yet are easily removed.
When you are in View by Name you never know how much space is left on a disk. Here's how. Create an empty folder. Set it for View by Icon. Remove it from the disk window and place it on the gray desktop, with its window open.
Voilá! You can read the space remaining now! Just leave the folder outside of the disk's window. Whenever the disk is inserted, the folder will appear where you placed it -- on the gray desktop. (Nibble Mac)
If you are changing connections on your Macintosh, first turn off any SCSI device attached. You can damage a hard disk or tape drive if you don't turn it off first.
Use multiple windows! For instance, in MS Word, bring up an address list, or a memo document, give it half the screen. Now bring up your "other" document and merrily Copy and Paste between the two right on screen.
Or, pull the bottom of your Word screen (or MacWrite) up a half inch. Now call up your Scrapbook. Position it so it will be visible beneath your word processing application's window. Now you can click back and forth from Scrapbook to word processing without closing the Scrapbook every time.
Postscript SIG anyone? Eugene MUG is forming one. Call Donna Giilhousen, 686-2495 for more information.
Got time to burn? Buy an IBM-PC. A study by the Army's training and document group at Fort Benning found that it takes about 20 minutes for a user to learn to use a Macintosh. It takes two hours to learn an IBM-PC, or 20-40 hours for most other computers.
The 20 minutes sounds about right, but I doubt that a novice IBM-PC user could achieve the same working prowess in the two hours the Army found it took.
MacProject 1.2 upgrade supports color and can print multiple documents from the Finder.
MacTerminal 2.2 has better 3270 mode operation, corrects operation of the ENTER key, and allows arrow keys to repeat.
How many Macs in the Pentagon? 200 at last count, and a growing Pentagon MUG.
Which System is which? And which Finder is which? Since you probably wiped out any mention of version number when you last reformatted the desktop (held down Command/Option while booting the disk, which wipes out all GetInfo comments).
The creation dates will squeal on the System or Finder. Here they are:
4.1/5.5 April 1987
System 4.0 January 15, 1987
3.3/5.4 January 12, 1987
3.2/5.3 June 1986
3.0/5.1 January 1986
System 2.0 February 1986
Finder 4.1 April 1985
Programmer's: Attention! Can you develop a DA or FKEY which "marks" the GetInfo box with the version number, and which will not be erased when the desktop is reformed? Or maybe marks the icon -- or something! I lose more vrsion numbers when I reformat the desktop! Help!
Hard disk noise has been tested by Ric Ford. He says those using a Conner 3.5" drive are quietest. Drives using a Conner include Hyperdrive FX/40 and FI/40, ProApp 40, and some others. He found the new MacBottoms pretty good and the Rodimes slightly noisier. The DataFrame is pretty quiet if you remove the ground strap. He says the noise of the SE fan will mask the sound of ANY hard drive.
(Editor's note: I have a Peachtree S20+ which has a Rodime drive inside it. It is so quiet I have to put my ear next to it to see if it is on. Let's face it, hard drive noise is subjective.
Ken Peterson of Portland MUG has some of the Peachtrees available. The company folded and Rodime took over their stock of drives and backs them fully. They are $645. I recommend them highly!
The other "best buy is a Jasmine 20 for $649 [if you don't use plastic money]. The MUG newsletters are carrying a lot of praise for the Jasmine, and I had a client install one -- he likes it a lot.)
Microsoft is looking for some desktop publishing software to buy. If they bought up Aldus, they could get some of their programmers back.
I was going to buy Aldus stock on the first day of issue. Of course I forgot, and Aldus stock went from an opening $20 to $36 within the first day.
Oh, well, next time.
Some people have criticized Aldus for a recent clam-up on technical information. That should be expected. The Securities Exchange Commission would get on their case if they made any statements which could be construed as hyping their stock's value.
So relax, people. That was par for the course with new stock issues.
The Apple //GS keyboard is recommended by Ric Ford for Mac SE use. He would buy it in preference to Apple's standard SE keyboard.
Remember the "widespread failure of Mac II battery stories in InfoWorld? Well, VINDICATOR says, as reported in Mouse Times (Goleta, CA MUG), that the culprit was one, repeat, one beta Mac II which InfoWorld heard about. Apple fixed the problem immediately and knows of no other case of failure. But InfoWorld jumped on the one case and reported "widespread failure of Mac II batteries."
So much for Blue journalism.
That leads into InfoWorld's July 13 review of word processors. Once again, InfoWorld didn't specify MS-DOS programs only. They just blithly assumed that everyone would know the only progams they were comparing were for IBM-PCs and compatibles.
It would be screamingly funny, except that this personifies the blind allegiance of the business world to MS-DOS.
It's easy! If you don't talk about the Mac, it doesn't exist.
Right?
How do you get a screen dump of the Option or Shift/Option keyboard characters in KeyCaps?
Resources from San Diego MUG says press the Option key, hold down the mouse button with the cursor away from the KeyCaps window, while still holding the mouse button, press Command/Shift/3. Now press the Option key again before releasing the mouse.
For Option/Shift keyboard, use Shift/Option in both places above where only Option was used.
If you take these KeyCaps images into Pagemaker 2.0, you can reduce them to as small as 24% of original and they will turn out beautifully. Be sure to hold down the Shift and Command keys while reducing to insure "graphic arts" sizes which will print well at 300 dpi.
You can put Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on an 800k disk, so you have room to save games on the same disk.
The trick is to use an 800k MFS disk. Boot your Mac with System 2 and Finder 4.1. Insert a newly formatted HFS double sided disk. Select the newly formatted disk and choose Erase Disk from Special Menu. This will give you an 800k MFS disk.
Now restart your Mac with a disk with System 3.2 or better and 5.3 Finder or better. Copy its System, Finder, Imagewriter and other desired System files over to the fresh 800 MFS disk.
Copy Hitchhiker from a master or backup to the 800k MFS disk. Copy any saved game files you want. Be sure everything has a unique name, since the target disk is MFS.
Use MacTools 6.3 or better, select Hitchhiker, select ViewEdit Files from the File Menu.
Check Resource Fork, if it isn't already in ViewEdit Menu. Select Read Specific Block from that Menu, enter 24 in the resulting dialog box and click OK.
Move back (use scrollbar) to the second part (B) or the block and find byte $15D (the last two characters of the seventh group of four characters following 0150. The byte should contain 67. Click on the 7 and type 0 (that's zero, not capital O).
Now find bytes $167 and $168 (the last two characters of the fourth set of four characters following 0160, and the first two characters of the fifth set). These bytes should contain 6F and DA. Click on the F and type 004.
Select Write Block from the ViewEdit Menu and click the close box.
Insert the master Hitchhiker disk, select the file named Z.DAT, select Copy Files from the File Menu and select the 800k MFS disk from the dialog box. Now your invisible file has been transferred to the 800k disk.
Quit MacTools, using Quit from the Control Menu. Eject all disks. Restart with the 800k MFS disk. Make sure you can run Hitchhiker without it asking for the master disk. Check also to see if you can restore any previously saved games and that you can save and restore new games.
It is barely possible that Hitchhiker has released versions with a different copy protection scheme. If so, this fix will not work. (Thanks to Ron Lynch in Hawaii MacUsersGroup July 1987 MacVisions)
If you travel with your Mac often, get Airline Seating Guide, Carlson Publishing Co., Box 888, Los Alamitos, CA 90720, $29.95 a year (its quarterly). It tells you how much room there is under each seat, so you can be sure to get a seat which will accommodate your Mac. (MacinTalk, Nashville, TN MUG)
No Macintosh-type machine has lasted two years before being phased out. Examples of Maclike machines phased out in less than two years are Lisa, XL, 128k, 512k, and soon now, the 512kE. Can the Plus be far behind?
Thirty-seven square feet of CD-ROM could store every scintilla (I got that word from a Mensa Mac owner) of written human knowledge.
I know, it says square feet. Could that be cubic feet by any chance?
Apple paid $100,000 for Servant. And non of Andy Hertzfeld's code is in Juggler.
A quotation from the May 11, 1987 issue of InfoWorld reaffirmed for Tom Warrick, President of Washington Apple Pi, why he uses a Macintosh instead of an IBM-PC.
The quote is from a column by William F. Zachmann, telling the best way to organize an MS-DOS computer's hard disk. It needs absolutely no explanation for any Macintosh user. Here goes:
"Only three files go in my root directory: Command.Com, Autoexec.Bat, and Config.Sys. All the other entries in the root are for subdirectories. I use the DOS Path command in my Auto.exec.Bat file to set a search path through the directories that contain commands and programs which I frequently use.
"The search path passes through three directories: Sysut1, Sysut2, and Sysut3. Old IBM mainframe types like myself will recognize these as the conventional DD names for intermediate sort files on 360/370 mainframes. I use them for their nostalgic appeal."
Yeah! Right! (Thanks, Washington Apple Pi)
On paper, the Motorola 68020 (Mac II, Levco Prodigy and Radius accelerator) and the Intel 80386 (IBM PS/2 model 80 and Compac 386) are about equal. But independent tests on real hardware show the 68020 beating the 386 by 20 to 40%.
Exacerbating that is Intel's announcement that IBM types have to wait until the fourth quarter, since Intel has recalled its 386 chips.
Maybe it isn't too late to buy Apple stock after all! (Thanks, Washington Apple Pi)
All Sony disks are polished on both sides, according to Mac hacker David Gursky. He says that is to cut production costs. The difference between single and double sided Sony disks? Sony CERTIFIES the second side on double sided disks.
If you have been formatting single sided Sony disks double sided, join a very large club. However, if you want to play safe, here is a two step program:
1) Use double sided Sony disks. CMUG sells them for only $17 a box, with labels.
2) Use Sony single sided and VERIFY THEM FIRST WITH Central Point's MacTools, using only those which pass verification. CMUG sells single sided Sony's for $11 a box of 10 with labels.
Chinon 800k external drives got a thumbs up from bulletin board users. They run about $200. But remember, $200 is now more than a third of the price of a 20 meg hard disk.
Think about it!
Watch for dramatic Macintosh inroads into the federal government.
• The small MacPlus and/or SE lend themselves to security work. Several agencies are buying Macs which will not emit signals which can be intercepted.
• In several commands in the Armed Forces, individual Mac owners have brought their Macs to work and wowed their superiors and associates with presentations made on the Mac. The result is twofold. Other officers/NCOs have purchased their own Macs, so as not to be left in the IBM dust. And those commands have petitioned higher authority to let them officially buy Macs.
• China Lake, California's Naval Weapons Center has gone whole hog for the Mac. China Lake is a well-regarded research and development lab which produced the Sidewider missle. They are frequently in the vanguard when new technology is introduced.
• The Pacific Missile Test Center (PMTC) at Point Mugu, California has authorized the use of Macs throughout the command. One result is the establishment of a MUG at that Navy base. Sixty Mac users/owners attended the first meeting.
• That same base, PMTC, has a purchase plan under which employees can buy Macintosh hardware and software for $1 (one dollar!!!) more than the GSA (General Services Administration) price to the Navy. I was formerly the Public Information Division Director for PMTC -- guess I left too soon! We used typewriters and carbon paper a whole lot!
The growth of the Macintosh System has been studied by several groups. Washington Apple Pi's Tom Warrick listed the growth in a recent newsletter. The gist of his study is that "All Else," a categoy which leaves out Fonts and DAs, is the area to watch. You can't remove "All Else" (with some ResEdit trick exceptions), but you can reduce the number of fonts and DAs you use.
So here is the "All Else" growth pattern (rounded to nearest 1/10th k):
Version All Else (k)
1.0 32.1
1.1g 33.6
2.0 33.7
3.0 38.9
3.1.1 58.1
3.2 60.7
4.0 68.6
4.1 171.3
Since 128k owners are supposed to be using 2.0, this is not a significant problem for them. But 512k and Plus owners have to look at 171.3k with jaundiced eye, unless they have hard disks. If 3.2 is working, maybe you don't want to "fix" it with 4.1!
Ah, the versatile Tab key! Among other things, it switches you from drive to drive in any Open or Save dialog box.
Just a wee-bitty gotcha, Apple! In Mastering the Macintosh, published by Apple, it says you hold down the Command key and drag a document or application and it will be duplicated in a new location on the same disk without moving the original.
Nope! It's the Option key, Mr. Sculley!
Holding down the Option key while starting an application from a floppy will make that disk's system the startup system, not your hard disk.
There have been reports (and I have repeated them) that new versions of the System and Finder do not erase Get Info box comments when you use Command/ Option to reformat the desktop.
Not true, folks! I just lost a bunch of my comments because I believed that story. You lose 'em!
Hackers out there -- is there any help for this problem?
One solution I would suggest is the way Font/DA Mover 3.5 lists its version. It appears in the upper left corner of the window. I hope all software companies find a way to install the version number in a visible, non-erasable place! By the way, you can always check the About... selection under the Menu. It often carries the version number.
Did you know that About the Finder under the Menu can tell you whether a 512k has new ROMs or not? If the memory size is followed by a period, you have the 128k ROMs. If not, its 64k-ville for you.
There is help in Disk First Aid. Press Command/S after you select the disk to be repaired. You will get more information about the repair process.
A new Altsys release, Masterpiece, may give Adobe's Illustrator a run for its money. In view of Adobe's vicious Laser font protection scheme (initializes to a single LaserWriter and Tough Stuff if something happens to your LaserWriter ROMs and they have to be replaced), we can all hope so. Go Altsys!!!
It should have appeared by the time you read this.
WildCard is coming!
Bill Atkinson wrote it.
Enough said!
Well, nearly enough. WildCard is described by one Mac writer as a combination of Filevision, Guide, Filemaker and MacPaint with a touch of MusicWorks and a bit of FORTH and BASIC.
It will be released as HyperCard (Aw, I like WildCard better). It's a mix of hypertext, database, graphics and sound. It may be bundled with every Mac, and sold cheap to us existing Mac owners.
Hope so.
Guy Kawasaki on the IBM PS announcement: "IBM announced the Mac 128k -- about three years too late. It's as if they called up Apple and asked, What should we do to help you for the enxt three years. There's no system software, existing PC add-on cards aren't compatible with the new PC, IBM didn't bundle in the mouse, and did bundle a desktop publishing application program. That will make all the other developers really happy, as the MacWrite bundling did." (MacWorld, August 1987)
Kawasaki calls the tensest moment in PC history as the moment when David Bunnell asked Mitch Kapor of Lotus where 1-2-3 would be today if he didn't copy the look and feel of VisiCalc.
Gulp! Great moment, Kawasaki says.
Clock watchers…put the time into the header or footer and it will be readily accessible for all you clock watchers.
Ungroup before PS'ing in CricketDraw. Ungroup before you generate Postscript code. That will save time in printing.
This deserves repeating monthly. Do not put more than one System on a hard disk. I have encountered up to half a dozen systems on a hard disk. It makes me get nauseous and leave the premises immediately. I don't want to be around when "it" happens!
A Gassée quote: "I think the best survival kit you can have in the Macintosh jungle is a membership card in a user group."
Amen, brother Gassée!
Mailing Disks: Use #00 bubble pack shipping bags -- use a little foam sheet material first if you like. Place this in a 4x6 or 5x7 catalog envelope. Make sure the whole thing is more than 1/4" thick -- this avoids the Post Office mangling machines. They have to hand stamp it then.
Avoid extra cardboard, Jet-Pak bags and so on and you'll get away with two stamps (39¢) most of the time. No additional paper, or you'll run it up to 56¢.
Never mind the No X-Ray signs, because no one in the automated Post Office will be reading them.
If I find I am running just a teeny fraction over the 2 oz. limit, I sometimes carve some off the bubble bag or the foam. If its close to 2 oz., this can bring it under. (Most of this information from Ken Peterson, the world's premiere Mac Guru, of Portland, Oregon MUG. He writes for Mouse Tracks)
As reported elsewhere in Mouse Droppings, Adobe made MacValley Users Group MAD when they reneged on a speaking engagement at the last minute. MacValley wrote half a page about it in their July issue.
Do you want to increase the size of the System Heap? If you don't know why, don't do it.
To increase it, open FEdit Plus, select Open Volume from the File Menu. Select the disk to be modified -- either your hard disk or a floppy with a System. Select Edit Boot Block from the File Menu.
Change Boot Blocks Version to 21. Change System Heap Size (512k)" from 49152 to 79152. Click the Update button. Quite FEdit. Shut down. Start up with the altered System. Test with applications on backup disks until you are confident there are no problems.
Warm Fuzzy: MacInSpire from the Xochiquetzaltzin Memorial MUG (I'm going to have to add that to my spelling checker dictionary) says "The warm and friendly tone of (Mouse Droppings) along with the beautiful illustrations and informative articles makes it a joy to read.
Why do we care? Well, XMUG (that's better) is the MUG for Mensa members -- those dudes and dudesses with IQs in the upper two percentile.
They're smart and they like Mouse Droppings. Can't beat that with a wet noodle!
What has 300 Undo levels, 59 built-in macros and ten Clipboards?
Give up?
QUED, a text editor. Chris Wesselman, in a review for The MacPacker from The MacPack of Richardson, Texas, likes it for non-programmers. He cites a raft of benefits if you want to learn the program.
JT Fax will be released soon. It will send and receive Group III fax transmissions. It attaches to either the Mac's pritner or modem ports and retails for $695.
Adobe weaseled out of a MacValley MUG (Burbank, CA) demonstration at the last minute leaving several large newspapers, a lot of major companies and bunches of members stuck.
Not too smart, Adobe! There are a lot of ways to recoup a problem like that, and you didn't think of a single one, did you?
By the way, Adobe also has a policy of not providing a raffle copy of a program for MUGs, according to MacValley They aren't alone there, but lots of companies will. MacValley MUG says about 95% of the companies will. Of course MacValley is a BIG Macintosh Users Group, and may get a bit better shake.
Smash Hit Racketball is copy perverted with an evil twist. Try to use Copy II Mac to make an archive copy and it will modify your blank disk so that the Mac cannot even reinitialize it!
I think I have a way to retrieve such a disk. Use a cassette tape erase unit on it. Try it and see. What can you lose at this point.
Have you been scared out of your skull by warnings about hard disk head parking? David Ramsey in Mouse Times, Goleta, CA MUG) says parking is an overrated commodity. Most modern hard drives are plated media. It is almost impossible to crash them.
If they are oxide coated, the heads are resting on the media, held by light spring tension, and the mass of the heads is so small there is almost no inertia for a shock to exploit.
In other words, in real life, use reasonable care, and you can carry your drive around with you without regard for whether the heads are parked.
If your disk has a voice coil, it needs to be locked anywhere on the disk before the drive is moved.
I am just reporting this. I have no personal expertise -- except that I always take my Peachtree S20+ with me, and never have a problem.
Desk Accessories
Would you like to keep Acta open while changing applications? Use Immortality, a free INIT from Ron Risley. It will relaunch Acta (or Thunder, or whatever) after every launch. (David Rose in Mouse Times, Goleta, CA MUG)
Another feature of DiskTop DA is that it lets you launch into another application. It quits cleanly, letting you save changes as desired. A shareware version, when paid for, gets you the 2.0 version with lots of added goodies.
One of the goodies is Widgets, which lets you print 16 beautiful 24% reductions of MacPaint documents on a single page. It takes time, but WOW, are they gorgeous! Try it just one time!
To make the best use of Acta 1.2 and up, your "load it every time Acta file" should be named Acta File and placed in the System Folder. Now use the Convert/Configure program with Acta and specify Always load Acta File. Now it will open automatically whenever you choose Acta. (Raines Cohen, BMUG)
Battery Pak Calendar will work with System 4.1. Use FEdit or MacSnoopy.
Search for 2D40 FFD6
change it to 2D48 FFD6
then search for 2D40 FFDA
and change to 2D48 FFDA
Now create a new file and move just the Calendar desk accessory into it. Make the same changes in that file. Now reinstall. (Evan Gross in Mouse Times, Goleta, CA MUG)
Excel
Parts of Excel spreadsheets can be taken into MacDraw or MacDraft and each line, number or text item can be separately manipulated in those programs.
To do this, hold down Shift, select Edit Menu and you will see a new item -- Copy Picture. This will make a PICT document out of your selection. Paste into the object oriented program and manipulate to your heart's content.
FullPaint
Triple click the marquee tool in FullPaint to prepare a page to accept a full-page enlargement of an item currently on the Clipboard. Paste and it is done.
Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator's copy perverted version won't run on an SE or a Mac II (yet, as of July 21, 1987). Not only that, you lose use of your program until you send in your registration card and wait for the un-perverted copy to arrive.
LaserWriter
Adobe's LaserWriter fonts are also miserably copy perverted. They assign themselves to a single LaserWriter. Guess what happens if your ROMs need replacing? Right! Font won't work, and Adobe, we are told, doesn't care one little bit. Just buy another $185 copy.
Not me! I ain't buying no Adobe Fonts. Thanks Casady, Century, Digi-Art and all you nice people, for not making it hard for us.
Compressed air is good for your LaserWriter! Get a can of the stuff and dust out your LaserWriter from time to time.
By the way, you do clean off the corona wire regularly, don't you? If you don't know what I am talking about, run -- don't walk -- to your Apple dealer and have them explain it to you.
It is said that there are a bunch of empty ROM chip sockets in the LaserWriter. Whenever something like this is discovered, it usually means that Apple has something Delicious (Pippin? Granny Smith?) up its sleeve.
What can it be?
What does it mean when your LaserWriter's yellow light flashes?
Well, if your yellow light is double-blinking, it's getting information from the Macintosh. If it is single-blinking, it's doing internal Postscript processing. (The Computer Shopper)
Your LaserWriter makes some erroneous assumptions. If you choose a paper size different than your paper tray and print feeding manually, the LaserWriter assumes that the paper being fed is the same size as the tray. Some of the document may be missing.
For instance, try printing a legal document on manually fed legal paper with a Letter-size tray installed.
The fix is to go to Larger Print Area option, which will print out the document correctly. You do have and use LaseWriter and LaserPrep drivers 4.0, don't you? They are great! Big improvement.
This and three other LaserWriter bugs will not be fixed in the next LaserWriter ROM version. The other three bugs are:
• Postscript error when paper tray gets low on stock.
• Abort of jobs printing more than 15 copies of a document.
• Postscript errors on documents containing more than ten patterns. (Will be improved, but not fixed.) (Macintosh Technical Note #123, "Bugs in the LaserWriter ROMs.")
A brand new LaserWriter can have output readings ranging from 28 to 200 pages, depending on the hours of testing time it received. That's official from Apple. We (kings and newspaper editors use we in referring to themselves) know of a sale in whch the LaserWriter had something more than 3,500 pages noted on the first test sheet it spit out.
Whoa, there!
He has a new one now!
The new 4.0 LaserWriter driver is fast! But it do have a problem, folk! It doesn't want to manually feed legal size paper with a letter size tray installed.
Do this: Go into Options from Page Setup and select Larger Print Area. Legal size paper can now be manually fed no matter what tray is installed.
I accidently found another way to do this, but I have already forgotten what it is!
The print engine in the LaserWriter is no longer being manufactured. Progress, progress, progress!
You can print to within a quarter inch of the edge of letter size paper with LaserWriter driver 4.0. Use the Options menu in Page Setup to select the larger print area option.
Even if you choose not to upgrade to System 4.1, Finder 5.5, do use the new LaserPrep and LaserWriter icons. They are fast. Don't mix drivers if you have more than one Mac linked with Apple Talk.
Transparencies on LaserWriter? I touched on this before. Use only materials which will withstand the heat.
Bill Bauldry reports in Mouse Times (Goleta, CA MUG) that Chartpak Audio Visual film and Xerographic film Cat. # AFX50 work well.
By all means, make sure you use a type which can "stand the heat," or it will melt in your LaserWriter.
Oh, boy!
James River Corporation offers 17 papers for Laser printing. They are under the ProTech label. For samples and more info, call 800-258-0372.
I'll mention my favorite paper for the LaserWritr again: SuperMax Opaque, smooth, M650, Text 95 White, 60 pound, Howard Paper Mills, Inc., Dayton, Ohio.
MacDraw
Do you import MacDraw objects into Pagemaker? And does Pagemaker clip the edges? I have said this before, but here goes again:
Draw a no fill, no border box around the object in MacDraw. Group the object and its box. Now when you place this object in Pagemaker, Pagemaker will have to chew on your no fill/no border box, not on your drawing.
Want to work in pixels in MacDraw? Use custom rulers, set minor divisions to six to the inch. Change Numbering Increments to six. Now your ruler shows pica divisions. Choose 12 minor divisions for 6-point grid increments or 24 for 3-point grid increments.
MacDraw 1.9.5 is out! Take your master MacDraw disk in to any Apple dealer for the upgrade. Here's what the upgrade does for you:
• Supports 54 fonts
• Displays sizes above the font names
• Fonts are sorted by name in the menu
• If you switch copies of MacDraw and/or the System, if your fonts are present, MacDraw will find and use them.
• Launches 20 to 75% faster
• WYSIWYG text
• A standard zoom box is provided
• Cut and paste across volumes
• Allows saving Draw and PICT files with the same name without losing either one
• There is a Cancel Printing dialog box
• If there is no printer present, MacDraw will open a window anyway -- not a gray empty space
• Keyboard equivalents now are:
File Menu
N - New O - Open
S - Save Q - Quit
Edit Menu
Z - Undo X - Cut
C - Copy V - Paste
D - Duplicate A Select All
R - Reshape
Style Menu
P - Plain B - Bold
I - Italic U - Underline
Layout Menu
L - Reduce M - Enlarge
Arrange Menu
F - Bring to Front
J - Send to Back
G - Group H - Ungroup
K - Align Objects
To proportionally enlarge or reduce in MacDraw, draw a square around the object(s). Group the square and its contents. Now resize the square holding down the Shift key. Ungroup and delete your square.
Do you always save PICT from MacDraw for use in Pagemaker? Then use FEdit, MacTools or MacSnoopy, Open a copy of MacDraw, search for HEX string 4880 D07C 0009.
Change it to 4880 D07C 000A.
Write the change to disk. Exit.
Now MacDraw will default to PICT format when you save.
MacWrite
MacWrite 4.6 gives you an accurately scaled LaserWriter ruler. Other enhancements:
• supports arrow keys
• posts a new Last Modified date only if the document is opened and editied
• won't work with 128k Macs
Wait, then, for Apple's Chocolate, which is supposed to be their hot new word processor. They will give it to their spin off software company. (partly from MacFUG News, UofUtah MUG)
MS Works
Fast way to Get Attributes in MS Works -- double click a database cell to Get Attributes.
Changing field name in MS Works -- double click a field name to change the name.
Pagemaker 2.0
Speed up Pagemaker 2.0. Put the hyphenation documents in the System Folder. It has to hunt for them if you place them elsewhere. Same goes for the Pagemaker Help file. (Bill Davis, ClubMacMidwest)
When you pour narrow columns of Word or MacWrite into Pagemaker 2.0a narrow columns, the text pours into a very narrow strip down the left side of the column. (Example, type a column 14 picas wide in Word 3.01 and pour it into a 14 pica wide column in Pagemaker 2.0a.) Somewhere out there is a hint on how to set up your text in Word or MacWrite so that it pours correctly.
Anyone who has this information, let Mouse Droppings know and we will publish for everyone's benefit.
IBM is bundling Pagemaker in their Desktop Publishing package. We see this as the same disincentive as MacWrite being bundled with the Mac.
Mistake, IBM?
Where did Aldus get that name? I know, I know, it's for Aldus Manutius. a16th century scholar, entrepreneur and inventor of italic type.
But where did Brainerd and his cohorts come up with that? In a library in Corvallis, Oregon, while they were thumbing through a book on the history of publishing.
On that same swing down through Oregon, Brainerd became convinced that business offices needed publishing software more than their first market target -- newspapers. (Old Oregon Magazine, Spring 1987)
Anyone who hasn't upgraded from Pagemaker 1.2 to 2.0, try this:
Get someone to let you create a document in 2.0, saving it at intervals. Then print it out and time the process.
Now go back to 1.2 and create the same document, saving the same number of times. Now print it.
I'm here to tell you, you will kill to get 2.0 after you go back to the waiting game in 1.2.
And I didn't say anything about changing type sizes in one point increments with keystrokes, or changing column widths by grabbing a handle.
Or lots of other stuff.
I read an article today by a Mac user who says ReadySetGo 3.0 is better. He then proceeds to list five things Pagemaker does better. Nowhere does he mention a RSG 3.0 feature which surpasses Pagemaker (although there certainly are some).
I didn't get it. I still don't.
Some people don't understand why you see all those gray bars instead of text in many views of Pagemaker pages. That's called greeking. (I guess that's because it looks "like Greek to me.")
Greeking lets Pagemaker 2.0 save changes and redraw pages lightning fast, because in a greeked mode, Pagemaker doesn't have to read text, just know that it is there. If you gotta see the words, take it up in steps to 50%, 75%, actual size or 200% until it is visible.
Believe me, it's worth it.
No more Send to Back in Pagemaker 2.0. Just hold down the Command key and click where the objects are. They will cycle into active mode as you click.
Word 3.01
Check 'ands,' 'ths' and 'fr' and see if the spell checker in Word 3.0 will catch those errors. Guess what, those are all valid words according to Word 3.0. The "ands" is particularly damaging, since it is easy to hit the 's' key while you are lingering on the 'd' in 'and.'
Look, Ma, no Menu-mousing! Word 3.0 will let you access Menus from the keyboard. Press Tab/Command. Now press the first letter of the Menu (like D for Document Menu), then press the first letter of the menu item (like R for Repaginate). Now press Enter or Return.
Strong words from Jean Louis Gassée: "…I don't want a carcinogenic product like Word 3.0 where features are piled on features until it's incomprehensible… besides the bugs!…"
How do you add fonts to Word 3.0's first level Font menu? Hold down Option/Command and type a +. The cursor turns into a bigger +. Select Format Character. Select the font name you want to add and click Cancel. If you are adding more than one font, don't Cancel yet. Type Option/Command/+ and select another font. When done, hit Cancel.
To remove fonts, use Command/Option/- (minus) and point to the fonts in the first level Font menu you want removed.
Yes, you can get a Word count! Wanna count the number of words in a Word 3.0 (or 3.01) document? Select Change under the Search menu. Type ^w, hit Tab and type ^n. Change all.
Now select Section in the Format menu, click on Line Numbering and click on Continuous. Click OK.
Select Page Preview. Go to the bottom of the document. Magnify the last word. The count just before that word is the word count for the document. (MacUser, August 1987)
Fancy Word page. If you want a full page graphic in Word with text on top of the graphic, do it this way:
Use the header. Expand it to the full width of the page and paste in the graphic. Now choose PageSetup and give the top margin a negative value (try -2, -3 or -4). Go to Page Preview and check out your work. Don't expect to se your text on top in Preview, but it will print OK.
Another hint here: A very black graphic will not allow text to show up in a readable manner. One technique is to use Paint Bucket in MacPaint, FullPaint, etc., and "dump" a lighter shade of gray into all black areas. Text will look great superimposed on this kind of image.
See the July 1987 cover of Mouse Droppings, in which all but one image of Brook Shields was treated this way.
When you quit Word 3.0, Save every open document. Don't fall for the dialog box which says Save Changes? and answer No because the active document does not need saving. All the rest of your open docs will go bye bye without changes being saved. (MacValley Voice, MacValley Users Group, Burbank, CA)
To replace a word or group of words wherever it/they occur throughout a document in Word 3.0, locate the first instance. Replace it with the correctly styled, fonted, sized word(s).
Highlight and Copy the change. Go to Search Menu and select Change. Enter the original word in Find What. Tab to the Change To box. Type ^c (that's Shift/6 followed by lower case letter c).
This change will replace all instances of the Find What word(s) with the change you copied to the Clipboard, since ^c copies the contents of the Clipboard.
