Windows for Mac Users - Softcover

Williams, Robin; Baron, Cynthia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0201353962 ISBN 13: 9780201353969

Publisher: Peachpit Pr, 1999

Synopsis

If you're a die-hard Mac user who needs to work with Windows, you know that Microsoft's operating system is just different enough from your familiar Mac OS to make the transition less than seamless. Don't waste time fumbling around on your own. Windows for Mac Users will make mastering Windows much easier and less painful.

In this one-of-a-kind book, Cynthia Baron teams up with best-selling Mac author Robin Williams to give you a clear, witty introduction to the PC interface and hardware. You'll learn how to make your cross-platform commute smoother and more productive with Mac-to-Windows keyboard shortcuts and easy-to follow instructions on how to rename and transfer your Mac files to a PC. Save yourself time and frustration by letting the experts be your guide to the world of Windows.

About this title

About the Author

Cynthia L. Baron is the author of Creating a Digital Portfolio and the coauthor of Web Animation for Dummies. A designer and typographer, Cynthia teaches computer-related design courses at Northeastern University in Boston. As the technical director of computer graphics there, she also manages several networked, mixed-platform computer labs and is one of the founding members of the University's Multimedia Studies program.

Robin Williams is a fourth-generation Californian on both sides, born in Berkeley and raised in the Bay Area. She lived in Sonoma County for 15 years, then in 1993, she packed up her kids, the dog, and two cats and moved to New Mexico.

From the Back Cover

If you're a die-hard Mac user who needs to work with Windows, you know that Microsoft's operating system is just different enough from your familiar Mac OS to make the transition less than seamless. Don't waste time fumbling around on your own. Windows for Mac Users will make mastering Windows much easier and less painful. In this one-of-a-kind book, Cynthia Baron teams up with best-selling Mac author Robin Williams to give you a clear, witty introduction to the PC interface and hardware. You'll learn how to make your cross-platform commute smoother and more productive with Mac-to-Windows keyboard shortcuts and easy-to follow instructions on how to rename and transfer your Mac files to a PC. Save yourself time and frustration by letting the experts be your guide to the world of Windows.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Saving EPS les for printing in Windows
If you've always worked on a Macintosh, you may never have noticed that when you save an eps graphic there's an Encoding option somewhere in the application's Print dialog boxes or output options. This option becomes very important if you need to print Mac les using a Windows printer. Here are a few examples of the options:1. Illustrator 7.0: To set eps encoding, from the File menu choose Print.... Make sure your Print dialog box menu is set to Adobe Illustrator. You can choose ascii or Binary encoding (see below) from the Data menu.
2. FreeHand 7.0: From the File menu, choose Output Options....
3. Photoshop 5.0: Photoshop gives you the option to choose the encoding when you save a le as a Photoshop eps, after you click the Save button.

Encoding eps files properly
eps les can be encoded in either Binary or ascii. Macs, Mac printers, and Apple networks prefer binary les. Binary les are very efcient on the Mac because they're much smaller than ascii ones; unfortunately, they're worse than useless in Windows. pcs require ascii encoding and when force-fed a binary-encoded le will usually spew dozens of pages of junk characters. This is also true for network operating systems like Novell and the servers that often regulate mixed-platform trafc to printers.If you aren't sure where your le will be printed, it's best to save your les with ascii encoding. Macs and AppleTalk handle ascii les without problem as long as they have enough memory to deal with these larger ascii les.Be very thorough when you change a le to ascii. If an ascii-encoded document has a binary-encoded le contained within it, you'll probably see ugly PostScript errors. It isn't enough to change the encoding of the page layout or the word processing le-you must make sure every eps le you use in the document is also ascii encoded. If they aren't, open them in their original applications, choose Save As from the File menu, and change their Binary defaults to ascii (as described above). After you save this new ascii version, replace the binary versions that were in your page layout, illustration, or word processing program.

Printing from a Mac to a Windows printer
Under normal circumstances, you can't output from a Macintosh directly to a Windows-only printer. The cables are incompatible, and in many cases a Macintosh version of the software driver doesn't even exist. You can get around this by purchasing Infowave Wireless Messaging's PowerPrint (www.infowave.com). They provide a cable with a parallel port connection on one end and a Macintosh adb connection on the other, plus an extensive group of printer drivers. Once you've loaded these drivers and connected your Mac to the Windows printer, you'll be able to print normally.

Sharing a Windows printer
If you need to share a Windows printer between Macintosh and Windows machines, you can combine the PowerPrint solution (mentioned above) with a data switch box. This may sound scary and very technical, but the hardware part is surprisingly easy if you're a person who's comfortable with Macintosh upgrades and installations. Just use the guidelines in the hybrid solution section of Chapter 1, Preparing to do Windows, for sharing a monitor between a Mac and a PC, but substitute printers where it mentions monitors, and printer cables for monitor cables.

Printing Mac les to a Windows printer over a non-Macintosh networkMac les will output on a Windows network printer as long as these two circumstances apply:
1. The Macintosh has software on it that allows the le server to recognize that the Mac is there. Speak to your network administrator about making sure you have this software on your Mac and for instructions on how to log on and print using the network.
2. The network printer has drivers (printer software) that can be loaded onto the Macintosh. If it doesn't, you'll need PowerPrint Pro, which is the multi-user version of the PowerPrint software mentioned in the rst paragraph.

Printing Windows les on a Mac printer
Sometimes the Windows computer you're working on doesn't have access to a printer or isn't connected to the type of printer you need, so you might want to transfer a le to the Mac for printing instead. If a Windows le was not created with a PostScript application like Illustrator or FreeHand, and does not use PostScript fonts, you shouldn't have any problem printing it from a Mac. If a Windows le was created with a PostScript application and you have that same application on both platforms, the easiest way to print it is to save the Windows le in the application's native le format before transferring it to a Macintosh. Then you can open the Windows le on your Mac and print it just as if it had been a Mac le originally (that's how many service bureaus handle Windows le output). Well-designed cross-platform software will prompt you to choose equivalent typefaces and warn you about missing graphics to help make sure your le prints properly.If you create Windows les in their native formats, remember to include native le versions of your placed art as well. For more about native le formats, read Chapter 22, Transferring Files.

Edition details

• Publisher: Peachpit Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0201353962
• ISBN 13: 9780201353969
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 421