PC color design and Mac compatible solutions

As we all know, MO (short for "Magneto Optical Disk Drive") is an essential peripheral device for Mac (Mac). It has a large storage capacity, can be read and written repeatedly, has high compatibility, and is easy to carry around. And the love of color prepress designers. With the continuous development of the PC, its CPU, memory, graphics, hard disk, operating system and other performance can be comparable with the Mac, and even surpassed the Mac in some aspects. The excellent practicality and low price of PCs have gradually become a promising device for graphic design and color prepress design companies, but they are hampered in compatibility with Mac conversion, mainly the PC format and Mac format of MO discs. Incompatible with each other, it is impossible for a color printer on a PC to output film on the PC of the plate-making company. The author has now solved the problem of compatibility between PC and Mac formats and has accumulated some experience in practice. Now I share it with you.

The author is mainly engaged in computer color pre-press design and production, and different from other companies is that I use a PC to design, and can be compatible with Mac conversion. I previously used Apple Computer (Mac), and the consequent accidental opportunity made me fall in love with the PC. I benefited a lot from it (mainly saving a lot of money, I used the Mac half of the money to get the same practical Mac machine. ), The author's current PC configuration (as of early May 1998) is: PII266/64MB SDRAM/QT4.3G/4MB AGP/Philips105A/Verbatim MK640FA MO/EPSON Stylus COLOR 400. The following is a detailed description of how to use MO in the process of color pre-press design:

First, the use of color printing software refers to the desktop publishing system, the most decisive is the Mac professional design of the most popular, popular Adobe company development kit, which is the main design company, the main reason for the use of Mac companies, with the PC's Upgrade and development, Adobe also developed the same design kit for the PC's Windows operating system and compatibility with the Mac machine, which makes the PC color pre-press design and compatible with the Mac machine becomes possible, so in the PC to use Adobe's Windows version of the design suite: professional image processing software PhotoShop4.0, professional drawing software FreeHand7.0, professional publishing software PageMaker6.0C and so on. These softwares can be easily found in the local software CD market and new versions have already been introduced. The version number of the software must be the same as that of the Mac on which you frequently exchange data (files with different version numbers are incompatible). The use of the above software has been featured in the "Computer News", or is available in the computer book market.

Second, the use of MO (reusable read-write magnetic optical disk drive)

The main function of MO discs is storage and movement. The formats used on PCs and Macs are incompatible with each other. The main difference is that the PC operating platform Windows uses Format; while the Mac operating platform OS uses MacFormat. In order to be compatible with each other, you must first unify the MO disk format (MacFormat). The PC must use a MacFormat format of the MO disk requires a conversion software, is the key to this article.

1. Selection and installation of MO

Currently popular MO brands in the market include: Fujitu, SONY, Verbatim, Olympus, etc. The performance of any of their brands is very stable. MO is divided into built-in type and external type. The built-in type has a relatively low price. Although the external type has a higher price, its mobility and heat dissipation are quite good. According to its storage capacity, MO is divided into 230MB, 640MB, 1.3G, and 2.6G models. Among them, 230MB and 640MB MOs use 3.5" disks. Commonly, 230MB and 640MB models are available. The price of the disks is relatively low. The source is sufficient, and the 640MB MO can use 640MB and 230MB platters at the same time, so it is very popular; 1.3G and 2.6G MO use 5.25" platters, due to its high cost and few users. It is also rare in the market. I suggest using 640MB external MO, which will bring a lot of convenience to your office.

Common MOs are SCSI transport interfaces. The PC must install a SCSI card to install MO, the popular SCSI card type and brand are many, the price is between 270-470 yuan, what I choose is 53C8XX PCI-SCSI. When the MO is installed, turn off all the power of the PC, open the chassis, fasten the SCSI card to the corresponding expansion slot on the main board, close the chassis, connect the MO, and set the SCSI ID number on the back of the MO (SCSI transmission interface device). Multiple serial stations can be serially connected in series. Each ID number corresponds to the corresponding device). Turn on the MO power supply. After the PC is turned on, Windows self-check will find new hardware. At this time, insert the SCSI card's own program disk into the drive and install it. After the success, go to the desktop of Windows, double-click "My Computer" to see the newly added "Removable Disk" icon. At this point, the MO installation of the PC has been completed. It is as simple as that.

2. Use of MO

MO installed can be used, first to format a MO disk, insert the new disk into the disk drive, right-click "My Computer" in the "removable disk" icon, in the pop-up menu, select Format or double-click After the "Removable Disk" icon appears, the question "Do you want to format", select "Yes", the disk formatting interface will appear. Select the "start" after the blue progress block continues to crawl over the grid, and then display the format information "confirmation", select "complete" in the format interface, this new disk has been formatted, open the disk, the disk is empty Yes, you can erase the contents on the same disk as the 3.5" 1.44MB disk.

After the formatted MO disc is in PC format, the MO on the Mac is not open. To make the two compatible, you need to install two software Macopen and WinMac. Both of these softwares are available on the software CD market. You can also download the beta version of Macopen at http:// and you are welcome to contact me. The installation and use of software is very simple. Follow the installation instructions step by step during installation. After installation, an apple icon (WinMac) and Dataviz file will be added in the "Start" "Programs". Macopen will be executed automatically after booting. On the "Removable Disk" icon or in the pop-up menu after right-clicking on the "Disk Drive" icon, the "MacFormat" option is added (this means Macopen is installed successfully); WinMac is a The software that simulates the Apple Computer (Mac) interface on a PC can be run by selecting "Color Apple Icon" in the "Start" "Programs". After running, the Mac desktop menu bar appears at the top of the screen. Both softwares allow the PC to format any disk with MacFormat and open any MacFormat formatted disk.

The disk formats of PC and Mac can now be compatible with each other. Quickly find a good MO disc with a good Mac format, preferably with a few pictures. Insert the disc into the MO and double-click on the “Removable Disk” icon in “My Computer”. You will miraculously find that the MO disc The content is displayed on the desktop, with the appropriate program to open the contents of the disk; then, right-click the "removable disk" in the pop-up menu, select MacFormat format a MO disk, and will already have FhotoShop4. 0 and PageMaker6.0 make a good copy of the file to the disk, take the disk to the Mac machine to try it, you will open it and use the file on the disk.

3, a few issues worth noting

(1) MO uses different methods on PC and Mac

On the PC, turn on the MO power before turning on the computer so that it can be detected and displayed in "My Computer". Use it like an optical drive and a small drive. Double-click to open the contents of the disk and right-click to use the corresponding menu contents. , format or eject the disk.

On the Mac, you must first insert the MO disc into the MO, and then use the appropriate disk tools to format or display the MO disc on the desktop. (The first MO disc needs to be used after each boot. MO The disc is inserted into the MO again, and the disc is automatically displayed on the desktop.) The MO disc can be removed by directly dragging the disc into the trash can or pressing the eject button on the MO.

(2) File storage in MO discs

When storing files on the MO disc for PC and Mac exchange, the file name must use keyboard characters other than Chinese characters. Otherwise, there will be problems with file opening. The reason is that Windows and MacOS are supported by the two operating systems. This is also the reason for the incompatibility of Chinese characters. When using a PageMaker typesetting file on a PC, you need to change the font when you open it on your Mac. This is the most complicated aspect of designing and outputting the film from the PC to the color printer. The rest is the same as the Mac.