I was puzzled about how to access the PageMaker 4.0 menus in ResEdit until I realized that these resources are in PM4 RSRC, which you will find in the System Folder. Why do I care? Because I wanted a keyboard option to choose Reverse Type. Although this may be possible with QuicKeys, it is far simpler and more reliable done in ResEdit. Just Open PM4 RSRC in ResEdit and go to MENU resource. Hack around there for a minute and you will know exactly what to do.
To choose tools from the keyboard in PageMaker 4.0, use F1 through F8. 1-4 for the top row and 5-8 for the bottom row, left to right.
Command/spacebar toggles from the current tool to pointer tool and back again in PageMaker 4.0.
Clicking on a page icon in PageMaker 4.0 with the Shift key held down gives you Fit in Window.
Hold down the Option key while selecting a page view in PageMaker 4.0 makes all pages show that view.
Shift/Go to Page… gives you a slide show of all pages in a PageMaker 4.0 document, starting at page 1. A mouse click stops the show.
There is a student version of PageMaker 4.0 for $50. It is limited to 12 page documents and has no help menu.
Oblique is not true italic. It’s just Roman style electronically leaned over. (Thanks, Known Users, Sequoia CA MUG.)
Some MUG newsletters out there are saying that you can sharpen up 72 dpi graphics by “reducing the drawing to 1/3 or smaller than the original.”
Nope! Only by reducing to exactly 24%, 48%, 72% or 96%. PageMaker does that automatically if you use the Place command (not Paste). Use the Shift and Command keys while reducing the image.
Guessing at 24%, etc., is not likely to work. Also, I find from practical experience that PageMaker’s 24/48/72/96 sizes do a better job than The Clipper and reducing menus in various other programs.
One more hint: if the 72 dpi image is very black and dense, the 24% view may block up areas of the image. Try giving the image a graytone before importing it.
There is an upgrade for Desk™ promised soon. Look for it if you are registered. Zedcor has a record of being responsive to users, so expect Desk to get rid of bugs as fast as they can.
In about two upgrades, I expect Desk™ to take off like a rocket, probably based on word of mouth promotion by current users.
DeskPaint and DeskDraw are already almost indispensable to desktop publishing people. Expect improvements in DeskWrite and DeskFile to make them equally valuable.
Desk File is just two features away from stardom. It needs to sort on dates and do multiple sorts.
Hurry up, Zedcor!
Someone out there had an INIT conflict. The fix was to remove the ™ following ATM in the ATM INIT. Strange but true. Maybe you will find a need for this tip some day.
If your printer tech service person says they are voiding your warranty because you aren’t using a specific brand of toner cartridge—the one supplied as original equipment with your printer—tell them that is illegal and violates both the Sherman and Clayton anti-trust acts. The burden is on them to prove conclusively that your refilled or 3rd party drum is incompatible with their printer. That will be very hard to do, since that is not the case.
Hint: would this be a Hewlett Packard dealer, by any chance? HP is famous for wanting to sell only its own branded cartridge. (Thanks in part to Larry Spinak, MacValley Voice, Burbank CA MUG.)
Those 8 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch check storage boxes will hold 100+ 3.5 inch disks. (Thanks, VMEG Connection, August 1990.)
MacWorld points out that 3.5" disks mailed in plain envelopes should have the metal door at the bottom, so that the cancelling device doesn’t crush it. Frankly, disks mailed in plain envelopes are at risk without further protection. I have thrown away more disks because they were mangled in the mail this way than from any other reason.
Buy some bubble pack bags. Get a group together and make a buy and you get them for less than 10¢ a bag.
Here is a Macintosh Quinella—a “Twofer” deal you might like. Buy a Northgate MacUltra keyboard for $159 (maybe less). Use the enclosed card to get QuicKeys 1.2 for $25.00. Since it is already past August 1, 1990, you are entitled to the $24.95 upgrade to QuicKeys 2. That means you get QuicKeys 2 for $49.95—far less than street price.
And you can now throw away that old Mac keyboard and type on the ULTRA with its great touch and 12 extra function keys.
Look for Broderbund’s Banner Mania. It is supposed to be the “TypeStyler” of banner programs with 50 banner templates, 34 special effects, 27 shapes and 19 fonts. It will use Type I fonts as well.
A review of spreadsheets in MacWEEK credits FullImpact for its adherence to the Macintosh interface. They recommend it as a “no nonsense” spreadsheet which does not need or have presentation features. It also has a lot better macro language than other spreadsheets. MacWEEK calls it a potential dark horse in the spreadsheet races.
Claris CAD 2.0 is getting raves as a solid performer.
To zoom in to a precise point in MacDraw II, click on the spot, then click Command/right arrow. To zoom back out, use Command/left arrow. (Thanks, ClubMac of Monterey CA Journal.)
If you often Print to Disk, there is a hidden button in your Print dialog box which you can reveal if you are not chicken at using ResEdit. If you are, I’ll do it for you.
Here’s how. Open ResEdit. Open LaserWriter in the System Folder. Open DITL. Click once on DITL-8191. Open as Template from the File or Resource menu (depends on the version of ResEdit you are using). Press Return when the dialog box appears. Scroll in the window which now appears until you reach the last item. Next to Item Info the words Disk File appear. The numbers in the Display rect boxes are all 0’s. Click the first Display rect box and change the 0 to 74. The next three boxes are changed to 350, 90 and 450. DO NOT press the Set button next to the boxes. Save your changes as you exit ResEdit. Now you have a Disk File box that is visible to click on. (Thanks David Ramsey and MacWEEK.)
The less you mix 800k disks and FDHD drives, and FDHD disks (formatted 800k) and 800k drives, the safer you will be. Think before you format disks 800k. If you can format them in an 800k drive you will be safer. Initialize them 800k in an 800k drive even if you will later use them in an FDHD drive.
Hey, Microsoft, I’m not picking on you. Just reporting the anomalies in Microsoft programs. For example, QuicKeys 2 buttons don’t work in Excel 2.2. Non-standard dialog boxes!
Almost every day I read about one or more “features” in a Microsoft product which are non-standard. I have a feeling we call those things bugs in anyone else’s application. Then we put pressure on the developer to FIX IT.
Is Microsoft too big to respond to Macintosh users’ legitimate gripes?
Another way to touch up Laser printer output is to use water-based felt-tip black markers. The “other” way is to spray the output with artist’s fixative. Grumbacher is one brand.
Here is an early HyperCard 2.0 tip from MadMacNews from Madison WI MUG. To set any card in your stack to a different size than the rest of the stack, use this script:
on open card
set the rect of this card to¬ 0,0,300,300
end open card
-- where 0,0,300,300 are replaced by
-- screen locations to give you the
--size and location on screen you want
If your Mac II series monitor shuts off after about 15-20 minutes, try these steps in order:
• turn off monitor power, wait 5 seconds, turn it back on
• turn off monitor power, place your hand, fingers outstretched, on the screen, turn the monitor on again, after some static crackling, remove your hand
• have any bad solder joints replaced
• replace the high voltage cutoff capacitor, Sony part 1-230-666-21, or Apple part 910-0058. The Sony part is $55 and the Apple part is $80. They are the same.
Hmmmmm! Did you gold plate it, or what, Apple? (Thanks in part to MadMacNews, Madison WI MUG.)
This hint is not for wimps, so take care. If you edit Monaco, Geneva or Chicago fonts, your Mac will not recognize the changes. To make the Mac user your edited version, use ResEdit. Find the ROv# resource (117 for the Plus, 630 for the SE, 376 for the Mac II, 1160 for the IIfx, and I don’t know what for other Macs). Add the resource type and the ID of the ROM resource you want to override. For Monaco 9 that would be overriding FONT 521.
Don’t mess with this unless you are comfortable with ResEdit. I will not be screwing with this one personally. (Thanks, MadMacNews, Madison WI MUG.)
For an on-disk tour of British Columbia, call 1-800-663-6000 and tell ’em you want their “Outdoor and Adventure Vacation Guide” including the Macintosh diskette. You will need HyperCard 1.2.2 or better to run it. It is worth a look, according to MadMacNews of Madison WI MUG.
Whee! Microsoft’s tech support line is now a free 800 call. The number is 800-426-9400.
Don’t ever say that Microsoft does everything wrong. Their tech support and user group support are absolute class. Count on it.
Don’t turn your LaserWriter off and on to restart it while a job is in the process of downloading. Some programs do not like this. Cancel the printing before turning the printer off and on again. (Thanks, Chuck Weigand of The Weigand Report.)
If a program won’t work after you have replaced it with a clean copy, try replacing the preference and default files. They may be corrupted. With PageMaker, you might want to replace the PM4 RSRC file located in the System Folder. (Thanks in part to The Weigand Report.)
Do you need to perforate a small job? Use a dressmaker’s wheel from your nearest sewing shop. Try different surfaces to back up your sheets. The surface needs to be firm, yet slightly yielding. (Thanks, The Weigand Report.)
Wall Street is just starting to use Market Max on Macintoshes to track the stock market. They have been using dumb Quotron terminals which don’t even update automatically.
When you get that menu arrow at the bottom of a long menu, you have a choice of fast or slow scroll. Touch the pointy bottom for a fast scroll, or the flat top for a slow scroll.
Here’s a hint for the Mac Portable. To save the battery life, give MS Word a big memory partition, then use Keep in Memory. Since Word will then no longer access the hard disk under most circumstances, less juice is used by the battery. (Thanks, MacWorld.)
There are still companies out there selling devices to punch an extra hole in your 800k disks, so they can be used as FDHD disks. Folks, this is absolutely criminal. Disks converted this way WILL fail and WILL lose data. The only variable is how long it will take to happen.
Here is a cute .eps image editing trick. Open the .eps image in Illustrator 88. Choose New Window. Choose Preview Illustration for the new window. Return to the original window and edit. As you edit, the changes can be seen immediately in the “new” window.
The file compression field out there is a jungle now. There is the old faithful, Stuffit shareware. Then there is Stuffit Deluxe (with some bugs, I understand), Diamond, Disk Doubler and Compactor.
Apple is said to have settled on Disk Doubler, buying a worldwide license for the program. Disk Doubler has some neat features. It compacts files in place, and merely changes the icon to the Disk Doubler icon. When you USE a compacted item, Disk Doubler recompacts it when you are through. A very smart program.
Watch these programs closely while continuing to use shareware Stuffit until the dust settles and we can tell which program is going to be the all-time champ.
Disk Doubler looks like the winner. If you must leap now, try Disk Doubler.
Haven’t seen this one, but Checklist 1.0 (shareware) or 2.0 (commercial) makes a report of the fonts used in a PageMaker document, and lots of other things which are helpful when using a service bureau for output.
If your output will be 300 dpi, try these fonts, which it is claimed show well at lower resolutions:
Stone Serif, Trump Medieval, Century Expanded, Centennial, Corona, Excelsior, Impressum and Melior in serif fonts.
In sans serif, try Helvetica, Franklin Gothic, Gill Sans, Frutiger, Stone Sans or Univers.
Other fonts which look good are Hiroshige, Post Antiqua and Zapf International.
If you are looking for other fonts which reproduce well at 300 dpi, look for fonts which have lower case g’s and e’s which don’t plug up with toner in small sizes. If you find clean e and g characters, the font will probably be good at 300 dpi. (Thanks in part to Personal Publishing.)
Try this combination for your correspondence. Adobe Garamond set 14 on 18 leading. Use 2 inch top and bottom margins and 1 1/2 inches on the sides. Put it on 24 lb. Strathmore Writing in white or cream. Looks great. (Thanks, Personal Publishing.)
Yes, you can kern a SPACE in PageMaker 4.0. Just be sure it is a fixed space. There are four kinds of spaces in PageMaker. The plain space is not a fixed space. It won’t kern. The kernables are fixed space (Option/Spacebar), en space (Command/ Shift/ n), em space (Command/Shift/m) and thin space (Command/Shift/t).
Speed up desktop publishing programs and some others by giving ATM more memory. Now that I have said that, does anyone know how to do that?
Wanna diagnose a PageMaker 4.0 document which is giving you problems? Click on a blank area with the pointer tool. Now select hyphenation while holding down Shift and Option. You’ll get one beep if the document is OK. Two beeps means there are problems and PageMaker fixed them, and three beeps means there are insoluble problems. (Thanks, the PageMaker manual, of course!)
A recent issue of the Wall Street Journal reported a shortage of mouse balls. Guess they were short on deficit, S&L and budget news that day, huh?
If you own TypeStyler, be sure to get the 1.5 upgrade. It is free within 90 days of purchase of an earlier version. After that it is $25.
