TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Converting Mac screen dumps to PC From:Mike Stockman <stockman -at- JAGUNET -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 17 Jul 1998 14:10:24 -0400
On 7/17/1998 1:46 PM, George Mena (George -dot- Mena -at- ESSTECH -dot- COM) wrote:
>Factual clarifications and corrections for the list, for Mike Stockman
>and for Melanie Gray:
>
>1) Command-Shift-3 is the hotkey sequence in the Mac environment. This
>is easily verifiable by reading the Macintosh Bible.
Beginning with MacOS8, command-shift-3 makes a PICT of the entire screen,
while command-shift-4 lets you drag to select the area you want to
capture.
>2) Screen captures are numbered from Picture 0 through Picture 9
>*ONLY.* When you get to Picture 9, drag the files to diskette to save
>them, then either delete the original Picture x files or save the next
>batch of graphics in another folder on the Mac in question to avoid
>accidentally overwriting the first batch.
As you sent privately, this isn't true with MacOS8 either. It keeps
numbering on up, forever... give or take.
>3) Mac-based screen captures are saved as MacPaint-formatted graphics,
>NOT in PICT format! After the captures are created, they need to be
>converted to PICT before a Windows application like Photoshop can use
>them. The Mac version of Photoshop should work well here. So will
>ExpertDraw, which not only gives you PICT files but also EPS files.
>It's $29US or something like that.
PICT format is correct with all recent MacOS releases. I'm not sure when
it started... somewhere in MacOS 7-land.
>4) MacPaint-based screen captures that have been converted to PICT
>format can in fact be imported into WinWord documents, beginning at Word
>6 and continuing to Word 97
Word can import PICT files, as can other programs. I've had more problems
with PICT files (both bugs and cross-platform issues) than I've ever had
with TIFF, GIF, or JPEG files, so that's what I recommended using.
Besides, TIFF will work with virtually any publishing platform known,
whether it's UNIX, MacOS, Windows, OS/2, etc., while PICT probably won't
fare so well.
Just to set the record straight...
----->Mike
____________________________________________________________
Internet: stockman -at- jagunet -dot- com AOL: MStockman