Cross-platform Compatibility Tips

File Translations: The Basics
Any time you try to open files created in one program in another, you risk the possibility that some could go awry: fonts might screw up, the formatting of tables, column or page breaks might change, or other, even more horrific, translation errors. This article presents a number of ways to address this all-too-common problem, but first, let's look at the basics. Your best bet is to find out what program the original was created in and attempt to open it in the same program, equipped with the same fonts. If this means having the original author send you the necessary fonts, so be it.

If, however, the original was created on a program you don't have, you should try to find out whether they can save it in a format you do have. Microsoft Word, for example, can open Word Perfect files; Corel Draw can open (some) Adobe Illustrator files; Paint Shop Pro can open JPEG files created in Photoshop and so on. Because Microsoft Office, Photoshop and other "professional" tools tend to be rather expensive, you may prefer to use one of the many shareware or freeware tools available to open these files instead. Here is a list of some common file types that people often need to exchange, and some inexpensive programs that can open them.

.DOC files (created in MS Word): Open in StarOffice (free, from www.sun.com), OpenOffice, MS Word, MS Works Suite, or most publishing programs. Microsoft makes a free Word Reader available to at least open the files; recent versions of Windows can open many DOC files in WordPad or, if available, Microsoft Works with simple formatting intact. If the file was created on a Mac, rename it with a .DOC extension to open on a PC. (.WRI and .RTF files behave similarly.) There are a number of conversion utilities available, too, including MacLink Plus for Mac (www.dataviz.com), Adobe File Utilities, etc.

Note, however, that Index and Table of Contents features, columns and other advanced Word formatting features typically will not display correctly in these other programs. For reliable results, Word really is the best choice in word processors. The Mac releases of Microsoft Office 2001 or Office v.X are really the only truly viable alternative to the Windows version. The least expensive way to get a legal copy of Microsoft Word is to purchase Microsoft Works Suite.

.TXT files (usually ASCII text without formatting): open in any text editor, word processor or publishing program. If possible, use RTF (Rich Text Format instead.) Note, however, that RTF files created using AppleWorks or ClarisWorks may not translate well to PCs. If you are having trouble with tabular data, you may find that exporting data in Comma Delimited Format or Tab Delimited Format is a better alternative. Most spreadsheets and database programs can import data in one or both of these formats.

.JPG or .TIF images: Edit in Paint Shop Pro (shareware from www.jasc.com), The GIMP (free from www.gimp.org), Corel Photo-Paint, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Photoshop LE, or virtually any other "paint-oriented" graphics program. Double-click to view; the Imaging utility included with Windows can open most common bitmap image types, including JPEG, TIFF, etc.

.ZIP files - open with WinZip (shareware from www.winzip.com) or the built-in UnZip utility in Windows Me or Windows XP. Aladdin Expander for the Mac can open Zip files and many other compressed file types, as can Windows utilities such as WinRAR (.RAR), WinAce (.ACE), etc.

.SIT or .SEA files - open with Aladdin Expander for Windows or Mac (freeware from www.aladdinsys.com). As noted above, this utility can also open many other compressed file types, including .HQX (MacBinary) and BinHex.

.ISO files - These are images of a compact disc, and can be burned onto a blank CD with the aid of a utility such as Easy CD Creator, or opened with a utility such as ISObuster.

.TTF fonts - PC TrueType fonts. Drag into your Fonts folder, or use a font management program such as Adobe Type Manager  to selectively add them to your system. PCs cannot directly open Mac fonts. To use a Mac font, the typeface must be converted from Mac (Type 1 or TrueType) format to PC Type 1 or TTF format on a Mac, using a program such as Macromedia Fontographer. See How to Convert Mac Fonts for Use on PC for further details.

.PDF file. Portable Document format files can be opened in the free Acrobat Reader for Windows, Mac and *nix, or edited in a variety of programs, including Adobe Acrobat, Illustrator, Photoshop or most other Adobe titles. You can created PDF files using the retail version of Adobe Acrobat or the free program called GhostScript (detailed later in this article). PDF files are capable of retaining all font information, exact formatting, web links, graphics, and virtually all other page attributes. We consider PDF to be the best solution currently available for truly effective cross-platform compatibility.

Video files: .MOV, .AVI, .MPG, .WMV, etc. Try using Windows Media Player or Apple QuickTime to read these files.

Audio files: .MID, .MP3, .ASF, .WMA, .AIF, etc. Try using Windows Media Player or Apple QuickTime to read these files.

Getting from one Platform to Another
When you are sending files from a Mac to a PC or vice versa, there can be several complicating factors, not the least of which is the fact that recent Macs don't come equipped with floppy disk drives. Emailing files or transferring them across a network is usually the simplest solution. For best results, Mac users should be sure to name the files with the appropriate PC file extension, as noted above.

Mac users having trouble opening files created on a PC may find the utility called FileTyper useful. FileTyper includes a "Make Creator/FileType the same as..." <some existing Mac file on your system>. You can drag and drop files to set these properties.

Windows users can easily force Windows to open a file with any program of their choosing by holding down the shift key, right-clicking the file and selecting "open with..." from the pop-up menu. Best results are, of course, obtained from the subsequent selection of a program appropriate for the file type being opened. See Is Your Next Mac an PC? for more info on compatibility issues.

Some users may, however, prefer to write the files to some sort of removable media. Generally, it's easiest to format the disk on a PC to ensure PC compatibility. Floppy-drive-equipped Macs can read PC formatted diskettes, but PCs cannot read Mac-formatted high-density floppies, at least without extra software. A free program that adds this capability to PCs is Gemulator Explorer, free from www.emulators.com. It also allows PCs to read Mac-formatted media on CD, SCSI hard disks, Zip, Jaz, SyQuest, SuperDrive and most other Mac-compatible storage devices. The following sections describe these procedures in more detail.

How to access other machines remotely
Virtual Network Computing, or VNC, is cross-platform, open-source remote access software. It is a remote display system which allows you to view a computing 'desktop' environment not only on the machine where it is running, but from anywhere on the Internet and from a wide variety of machine architectures including Windows, *nix, PPC Mac, 68K Mac, Pocket PC, etc. Among other uses, it's handy for remotely maintaining a server.  VNC is freely available at http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/. An improved version for *nix and Windows is available from from www.TridiaVNC.com.

A built-in Remote Assistance feature in Windows XP promises to make a similar capability more easily accessible to users of that operating system. And Microsoft, in July 2002 released Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac OS X. The free software lets Macintosh users access and run Windows computers and applications directly from a Mac. Users of Linux and other platforms can use rdesktop, an open-source Windows Terminal Services-compatible client from www.rdesktop.org.

Other remote administration tools for Windows include Netopia's Timbuktu (also available for Mac), Symantec's pcAnywhere and Microsoft's own Remote Administration Services. For Linux, the elite use the text-only Telnet to make changes remotely. The command-line-challenged can use a remote GUI manager for Linux called XDM. it's free.

Running other Operating Systems
Dual-booting - running multiple OSes.
Basilisk II: Mac emulator
Emulators - relive the golden age of computing.
Emulators part 2 - PC, Mac and PostScript emulation.
Blue Label 1.5 - A look at Lismore's PC emulator for the Macintosh.
The Macintosh Emulation Station has an excellent collection of Basilisk II-compatible Mac freeware and shareware titles.

Sharing Macintosh and Windows Files and Printers
Many Mac owners erroneously believe that the Mac OS has cross platform support whereas Windows doesn't. Windows NT and 2000 have AppleTalk support built in. See PC to Mac and Back for more information on cross-platform file and printer sharing issues.

Reading disks created on other platforms

Freeware Joliet extension for Mac Comments (0)
XLR8YourMac has an article on how to efficiently transfer files from a PC to a Mac using CD-R discs. Briefly, you need to burn the PC files to a CD-R using Joliet long file name extensions and then install the freeware Joliet extension for the Mac to read them. Macs will not read Joliet disks properly without this extension, and you'll be stuck with truncated 8.3 file names. For details, see xlr8yourmac.com/audio/issue64.html

CD Recordable Drives CD recorders have appeal to many kinds of users: graphics professionals who need an inexpensive way to store several hundred megabytes of scanned image data for easy retrieval. Read our report on Recordable CDs

Downloading a Web Site to CDRW. Ever wanted to download a complete site to a CD? It's quite easy if the site is smaller than 650 MB. The method depends on whether the site is yours or not, and depending on what operating system you use. For sites larger than 650MB in size, consider a PC-based tool such as Norton Ghost 2001 to back up hard drives to multiple CD-Rs or over a network, or use a DVD-R/CD-RW "SuperDrive" or DVD-RAM.

See our feature on SCSI, IDE, FireWire and USB and the Storage Section Index for information on these and other other drive technologies.

Cross-platform video
http://www.terran.com/CodecCentral/index.html is a one-stop reference site for video and/or audio compressor/decompressor ("codec") information. You need to have the same codec installed on your computer as the author of a video or audio file used to create the file. Thus, it is a good plan to produce your audio/video files using commonly available codecs. Refer to the above link to find out the best choices.

Cross-platform Printing & Publishing
Creating a CD cover & booklet. Part of almost any professionally produced CD is a booklet, often containing lyrics, credits and photos of the artists. Here's how the images for a project were created and produced usinng both PCs and Macs.http://www.pcbuyersguide.com/software/techniques/techniques-cdcover.html

The Graphics Toolkit: Can the PC cut it? - Like an old story passed down from generation to generation, the traditional wisdom in the computer graphics field has been that the Mac is a superior platform for such endeavors. Is it still true?

Desktop Publishing - An Introduction to PostScript. PostScript, for those who don’t know, is a "page description language" developed by a company called Adobe Systems. It is typically used for printing high-quality text and graphics on laser printers, imagesetters, and sometimes computer displays.

Ghostscript PostScript interpreter. It's fast, it's free and it gives your printer new capabilities.

PDF Color Seps - Creating separations with Adobe Acrobat. Pitstop Professional is an Acrobat plug-in from Enfocus.com and, now that we've used it to produce ready-to-publish colour separations, we can't imagine doing without it. This is a must-have add-on if you regularly deal with sending PDFs to a press. with it, you have almost complete editing control over any and all elements on a PDF page.

Roundup: Other Adobe Acrobat Add-ons.

Other cross-platform graphics tools include:

• Adobe InDesign  
• Adobe Illustrator 9.0
• CorelDRAW 8 for Mac
• Macromedia FreeHand 10
• Photoshop 6
• Photoshop 5.5 (with tutorials.)
• Photoshop 5.0
• Photoshop Plugins
• QuarkXPress 4.x
• QuickTime 4
• QuickTime 5
• Premiere   
• Maya, etc.

For Further Reading: (external links are beyond our control)

• Miramar ships PC-to-MacLAN for Win NT/2000
  PC MACLAN
• [PDF] www.miramar.com/products/pub/manuals/PC%20MACLAN%20v7.2.1%20Manual.pdf
  How to install PC MACLAN for Windows
  Text version
• PC Magazine: A Hub Above Hubs (06/09/98)
  PC MacLAN
• ZDNet: Peaceful Coexistence
  Windows NT 4.0 ... NTFS vs. FAT16 ... PC MacLAN
• PC to Mac and Back
  PC MacLAN, Fusion
• Macworld: Your PC Passport
  Dave, PC MacLAN, and TSSTalk
• Creative Mac - Mac Meets NT
  Windows NT, PC MacLAN
• Network Problems & Solutions
  PC via PC-MacLAN.  Linux software, free to use ...
• Setting Up a Mac-Win Network
  printer sharing ... setup a scanner or peripherals ...
• OfficeCommunity.com - Archives - Articles - Nov
  gateway for older systems. Thursby ...  free software
• Peer-to-peer Xplatform networking tips
• Mac OS X Public Beta Cross-Platform Issues
  AppleTalk ...
• Mac Life Preservers
  Aladdin  StuffIt ... MacLinkPlus
• MacSlash: Sharing Files with a PC
  Dave vs. PC MACLAN
• Windows Interoperability
  TSSTalk or PC MacLAN ...  (free!) Star Office ... a Mac serial-PC parallel adapter ... Scanners ...  SCSI
• Printing over NT Network - MacFixIt Forums
  COPSTalk
• Pure Mac: Cross-Platform
  Mac to PC format and vice versa
• AppleShare Clients for PCs
  Timbuktu ... MacLAN for Windows 3.1 is available as a free, fully functioning download
• CROSS PLATFORM COMPUTING 1998
  free converter programs
• Switching from the Mac to Windows
  free Mac emulators ... SoftMac
• Dual platform issues, part V: protocols, not platforms
  PC Maclan ... Outlook ... PC printers
• For the Printer - Home Networking Guide
  printer sharing ...  DAVE
• Alas, Poor Mac User
  ... PC Exchange
• www.asy.com
  TransMac and CrossFont