Ime not too clued up on the computer side of things so could someone enlighten me on using Mac's and PCs together
Currently I use a PC running Signlab and ive found this fine for sign stuff, but I would like to get more involved with print design
I will be getting a 9600 Powermac with Photoshop and illustrator in a couple of weeks and would like to know if its possible to move files between or will I have to keep things separate If I designed a logo etc on the Mac and wanted to get it Edge printed is it a problem?
seems anything in print is produced on the Mac though signs can be cut from Mac or PC
Thanks all Terry
Posted by John Deaton III (Member # 925) on :
Terry, although I am a Mac man, I have a pc at home and do some work on there too. I have had no problems swapping files when I take them off the pc to the mac in illustrator and photoshop. Vice versa, I don't really know. A mac will allow you to put a pc formatted floppy and zip disk in and get the files from there, but I've had trouble bringing something from the shop and using it on the pc on a mac formatted disk. One of our resident pc gurus will be able to help you with that I am sure. I know adobe files are swappable.
Posted by Cody Dennison (Member # 2625) on :
Very true - Mac will read PC on either native or PC formatted disks (including Zip, CDR, CDRW, Floppy, etc). Pc's will have harder time recognizing Mac formatted media. One thing to keep in mind about Adobe when swapping is version control. Illustrator 6 can be read by Illustrator 7 but not Illustrator 5. Fonts sometimes are another issue, make sure that you have the same font for both Mac and PC to get the same results (or convert everything to outlines before exporting). As far as operating systems go, the new OS for MAC (OS X) and Win's (XP) seem to resemble each other, in many ways, right down the line. As far as machines go the new iMac is really cool looking, fast, farely cheap and burns your own DVD's (neat for sending sign painting Projects as video samples to clients!).
[ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: Cody Dennison ]
Posted by Mike Pipes (Member # 1573) on :
If you already have a PC for sign graphics and you have to buy Illustrator and Photoshop anyways, why not just keep it all PC and not have any worries or questions whether or not files will transfer? Save some cash and upgrade your current PC hardware to better handle the new software if needed.
I'm not doggin' MAC's cause I know they're great machines, but there's no set rules that say ya gotta use a MAC for print.. in fact, MACs are losing more and more ground to PC's in the Graphics and Music industry every year.
Times are changing. In the past, if you wanted good graphics or music software your only choices available were MAC only. Nowadays, these good programs (ie: Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere, etc.) are available for PC and they work just as well.
Now if for some reason you just really have to have a MAC, I'd say set up both machines on a small network then you dont have to worry about your PC reading MAC discs. Since the native Illustrator and Photoshop files are cross-platform (they work on both PC and MAC) you can access the files from either machine across a network without any problems. There might be some software you have to install in order to connect the MAC and PC directly together via network cards and cable but it wouldnt surprise me if MAC OS X included it.
Posted by Roy Somers (Member # 403) on :
Get Conversion Plus from DataViz. Your PC will think it's a Mac. Well, almost. It runs in the background and when you put in a Mac file or disk your PC opens it like it was a PC file. You can format Mac disks on your PC and and save files as Mac files. I think it's included with some other program now but it's Saturday night and my brain is dead and I don't know what program that might be. Try it, it really works good.
Here's the duhhh edited part. The program is called MacOpener and it comes with Conversion Plus.
[ January 13, 2002: Message edited by: Roy Somers ]
Posted by Benji Mcentire (Member # 2442) on :
using PC , and having a mac here at the shop seems to work great, I do alot of work for both PC and MAC based sign shops and printers, I use MacDrive and I have never had a problem with bringing files in, Adobe products are the one in a million, they cross platform so easily. now I have seen havoc with do these things witch corel, I creat alot of my stuff in corel 10, save them in verson 8 format open them in Illustrator 10 save them as a AI, one reason and for sign makers this is a PAIN, corel has a problem with saving as an ADOBE AI file it seems to like to put lines through solid objects , like a circl looking perfectly fine on the outside but in a wire frame mode you will see a line through the middle, and most of the time a mac AI program cant read a AI file. Macs are the ruler for printing because of the many reasons they seldom fail, they work like a champ, I can do the same thing with my PC without trouble but macs I beleive are more stronger, plus also , they do not depend on a regristry, to some mac users this means alot
if you need anymore help email me or call me I would be glad to help
Benji
Posted by Terry Bull Sign & Custom (Member # 1876) on :
Thanks everyone for your advice I have printed it all out so i can digest your suggestions Seems to me theres some very clued up people visiting this board
Thanks again
Terry
Posted by old paint (Member # 549) on :
its sorta like have a ford car and a chevy car...they both will get you from point a to point b......hehehehehe
Posted by Bruce Bowers (Member # 892) on :
Hey all!
We have Mac Opener on our system and it works great. Doug Downey was the one who tuned me into the program. it has proven to be a life saver. It was worth every cent we paid for it.
You know... someday we are going to stop buying programs and such and stick more money in our pocket! LOL! Nahhhhhh... too much fun playing with them all!
have a great one!
Posted by Diane Crowther (Member # 120) on :
We have three Macs and five PC's networked using DAVE on the Mac side. Fantastic setup. We used to use sneaker-net, and it was always a nuisance finding a disk with any clear space on it, making sure it was PC formatted (since Macs can read both but PC's are fussy) then running from one machine to the other. Now that we're networked, the files are whizzing back and forth like lightning.
There are other networking software alternatives, but we chose DAVE (I forget why), and I have no experience with the others. As others have said, there is software you can buy for the PC that will allow it to read MAC formatted disks. If you're not going to network, that would be a good option.
