Summary: Segmenting to Go Cross Platform

[Matthew J Long <mjl100z -at- MAIL -dot- ODU -dot- EDU>]

I didn't think that this topic would generate so much interest, but it
did and here is what I learned:

The cool thing about the .hqx file is that it is a text document. That
means that it can be disassembled and reassembled in a word processor
which is what I did. And it works!!!

When you dowload an .hqx file for Macintosh on your PC and you want to
segment it to place on floppy disks so you can reasemble the files on
your Mac, the following technique works best: (I tried several)

Segement the File

1.      Start any word processor on your PC and open the .hqx file;

        If your word processor prompts you to specify the file type,
        select ASCII Text.

2.      Scroll down to approximately page 460. This is about how many
        pages will fit on a floppy disk. It may vary from one word processor to
        the next, but I found that in both WordPerfect and Word 460 pages =
        approx. 1.3 megabytes (small enough for a floppy).

3.      Place the cursor at the end of the page on page 460;

4.      Scroll back to the top of the document;

5.      Hold the <Shift> and place the cursor at the beginning of the
        document;

        This will highlight the text from page one through 460.

6.      Select Edit > Copy;

Save the First Segment

1.      Open a new document in your word processor;

2.      Select Edit > Paste;

3.      Select File > Save;

4.      Save the file as ASCII Text with a new name;

Save the Remaining Segments

1.      In the original .hqx file (page one through 460 should still be
        highlighted), press <Delete>;

2.      Scroll down to page 460 again and insert the cursor at the end of
        the page again; (go back to step 4 on the Segment the File section
        above)

        Just repeat the steps above until you have segmented the entire
        file. Make sure you name the new files with a numerical
        convention when you save them so that you can remember the order
        in which you should reassemble them.

Copy all the files to diskettes. (How's that for a one-step procedure!!)

Reassemble the Files on Your Macintosh

1.      Copy the files from the diskettes to your hard drive;

2.      In any word processor, open the first file specifying the file
        type as ASCII Text;

3.      Place the cursor at the end of the file

4.      Select Insert > File...(Word) -  or equivalent;

5.      Select the second file specifying the file type as ASCII Text;

6.      Repeat steps 3-5 until the segments have all been reassembled;

        If you don't have Word or the Insert > File... option, you can
        just open each of the files individually and copy and paste the
        text from each file into one document. Just make sure that you
        keep them in the right order

 7.     Save the file as ASCII Text.


Now all you have to do is decode the file with Stuffit or some other
Binhex utility.

Once I decode the file, the extracted file appears on the desktop (or in
whatever folder I had the .hqx file before decoding). Usually I can just
double-click the file and the installer will launch, but I have had to use
ResEdit to get it to recognize the type and creator information on
occassion. If you get the error message that tells you that the system
could not find the application that created the file, open the file in
ResEdit. All I have to do then is select the get information dialog box,
change the type information to anything (just type something) and then
change it back to the way I found it, save the file, and quit.

Don't ask me why it works, but it does. I guess it is like smacking the
side of the television when the reception goes bad. It doesn't really make
any sense to me, but hey, sometimes it works.

I hope that this info is usefule to others!!


_________________________________________________________________
And in case you missed the original post...

I have a T1 connection for my PC at work that allows me to download files
very quickly. I can grab files that are several MB in a few minutes. On my
Mac at home,however, I have a 14.4 modem that takes weeks to download
files of that size. I was just wondering if anybody knew how to I could
segment the Macintosh Binhexed files that I downloaded on my PC at work so
that I could take them home and reassemble them on my Mac later.

This was the best solution that I received. Others suggested getting a
Zip drive, but the solution above was about $150 bucks cheaper!!

Thanks everybody for your help!!!

////////////////////////////**************************************
        Matthew J. Long
        Technical Writer
        mjl100z -at- mail -dot- odu -dot- edu
        matt -dot- long -at- justice -dot- usdoj -dot- gov

        -When you can't be eloquent, choose brevity!
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