Speed up Classic Start up time

While you may have made the switch to MacOS X you may still need to run Classic applications. You can significantly reduce the time it takes for Classic to launch under MacOS X by eliminating unnecessary Control Panels and Extensions. MacOS X will also help in this process. To begin with start up the Classic environment (Go to Classic in System Preferences.) Once Classic has started, open the “Extensions Manager” Control Panel and disable all items. Then restart Classic.

When you restart Classic without Extensions and Control Panels the MacOS X system will alert you stating, “Classic needs to update files in the System Folder…” (Choose “Update”) The system will then enable what is absolutely needed. You will find that the speed with which Classic starts is enhanced by the reduced overhead.
Afterwards you should go back into Extensions Manager and enable a couple more items. You should enable “SMobjects for MacOS” as it is used my many Classic applications. If you’re still using QuarkXpress you will have to enable “Contextual Menu Extension”, “Shared Library Manager” and “Shared Library Manager PPC.” Other Classic applications may need others to be turned on as well.

PDF from Quark Xpress getting clipped.

You may find that a border on a PDF that was created from a Quark Xpress document becomes clipped (on the right or bottom.) The most likely cause is that the document was originally created in Picas and later converted to inches.
To fix this problem, create a new Quark Xpress document in picas and then copy and paste the contents from the old document to the new one. Create the PDF from the new document that the border wont be clipped.

Reinstalling Adobe CS2

You may find that you are asked to reinstall programs belonging to CS2 because of missing part. This recently came up after restoring a drive from backup. Adobe PhotoShop required re-installation, however this can’t be done if you installed the entire CS2 family of applications. You can’t install PhotoShop by itself and you may also have problems if you have updated all of the applications on the Internet.
In order to reinstall you have to completely remove the applications. To do this, begin by dragging the CS2 applications from the Applications folder to the trash. Next, delete the “Adobe” folder from the Application Support folder located in the Library folder. (This is the Library folder on the main drive.) Finally delete any Adobe “.plist” file from your own Preferences folder (Inside the Library folder in your home directory.) Once you empty the Trash you will be able to re-install the Adobe CS2 applications.

Formatting large text files while Importing into Quark Xpress

Occasionally you may have to import a large quantity of text into a Quark Xpress document. A little know feature built into Xpress is the ability to format text while importing using Xpress Tags. You may already know that you can use Style Sheets to create standard formatting with either Paragraph Styles or Characters Styles. You can choose a font, style, size, color etc. and apply the format by applying to selected characters or paragraphs across the whole document.
If you add “Style Tags” to the text before you import it, you can apply Style Sheets on the fly. Begin by creating Paragraph and Character Styles in your Quark Xpress document. Then add the “tags” to the text that you will import. At the beginning of a line you specify the start of a Paragraph tag with the “@”, the name of the Paragraph Style and end with a colon, “:”. Everything after the tag will be formatted with that Paragraph Style.
To add a Character tag on the same line, place a “<”, the name of the Character tag, and end with the “>”. If you want to force a Character tag start the tag with an “x”.
So your text should look something like this:
@Big_Style:This is the beginning of the paragraph and xTxhis is the end.

Each line is then populated with tags. When the text is imported, Quark will apply the formatting. With a little preparation will save you lots of time.

Open Source Remote Control

Another cool feature built into MacOS 10.4 (Tiger) is the ability to control a remote Macintosh with VNC or Virtual Network Computing. VNC is now built into the operating system and runs as a server on the Mac you want to control. (By the way you can run VNC services on a PC or a Unix/Linux computer.) To control a session you will need client software. You can download “Chicken of the VNC” client from http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/ to control you Mac or PC.
To enable VNC on your Tiger Mac, open the Sharing panel from System Preferences. Select “Apple Remote Desktop” and click the “Access Privileges” button. Check the VNC checkbox and enter a password for remote users. Launch the Chicken of the VNC client on another Mac. Enter the IP address and password, and get back to work.

Command to open the CD Tray

Here’s a handy command if you ever need to open your CD/DVD drive from the command line. Open the Terminal and enter “drutil tray open” at the prompt. Of course, “drutil tray close” will close the tray.

Black Boxes in Quark PDFs

There is a bug in Quark Xpress’s Export PDF feature. Adobe has always recommended using Distiller to create a PDF from a PostScript file generated through the LaserWriter’s Print function. The “Export to PDF” menu in the later versions of Xpress which also creates a PostScript file. However often you will find that when you create a PDF from a document with colored text boxes, they become filled with black.
When Quark Xpress creates the PostScript via the Export function it adds “distillerprams” to control how the PDF is made. This results in the black text boxes. The solution is to check of “Allow PostScript file to override Adobe PDF settings”
within the Distiller joboptions (not recommended) or make the PostScript via the Print Dialog. Hmmm. Maybe Adobe was right.