NVMUG eNews 9/22/2001
Last updated 9/26/2001
Geof Gonter Presented MacLinkPlus
NVMUG Meeting
10 A.M. - 12 Noon
Saturday, September 22, 2001
Community Bank Building, St. Johnsbury
Geof Gonter demonstrated MacLinkPlus, a practically essential tool for using Windows documents on a Macintosh, and in sending Macintosh documents in a useable form to PC users. Users with versions of AppleWorks which have translators are using the same translators by DataViz, although probably not as up-to-date. Stephen Farber brought souvenirs from MacWorld Expo sent to us by Gail Murphy Glore. Hartley took pictures of those who attended the meeting for possible web site and eNews use.
1. Geof Gonter's Demonstration of MacLinkPlus
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1. Geof Gonter's Demonstration of MacLinkPlus
The meeting began with a discussion about using ads or posters to bring more people into the meetings. We would like to be able to reach and help more Macintosh users. However, if we grew to much we would need a larger meeting space.
Geof started his presentation on MacLinkPlus telling about a Star Trek Deep Space 9
story involving their universal communicators.
MacLinkPlus tries to be a universal communicator, translating between computers and computer programs.
In his work, Geof has to translate spreadsheets back and fourth about four times a week between AppleWorks and Excel using MacLink Plus. Geof got MacLinkPlus free when he bought Macintosh System 7.6.1. He registered it, and later when he contacted the DataViz site about MacLinkPlus he was informed that all he needed was an upgrade. They are very good about retaining registrations and making it easy to upgrade.
Geof distributed printouts obtained from the web site:
First, a What's New
list of what was added in recent versions of
MacLinkPlus. The big change in Version 13 is that it now works with Mac OS
X. There were also new translators for Word and Excel 2001 and 2002, and
updated contextual menus with OS 8.1 to 9.x. Geof has not needed these
changes, so has not yet updated from Version 12. (I will probably need to
upgrade in the near future because I am still using Version 11.)
And, a complete list of translators supported by MacLinkPlus Version 12. There are very few popular word processing, spreadsheet, or database programs that MacLinkPlus cannot translate, but there is no easy way to translate between the Microsoft Access database and other databases. You have to use some other means such as tab delimited text.
If you want to see the complete list, want additional information about
MacLinkPlus, or want to order directly from DataViz, contact
http://www.dataviz.com
An upgrade from any earlier version of MacLinkPlus is $39.95, the full price is around $100, but Geof saw it listed for $79.99 by Deal Mac.
If you download an update, it becomes an smi.disk on your desktop which you double click to convert it to a folder. DataViz will e-mail your access number and serial number within 15 minutes.
PC Exchange is means to convert files between a PC and a Mac when there is
program that can do the convert a file with the extension (such as xls for
Excel), but the result is often Application not found.
Geof double clicked a MacLinkPlus alias to open the translator. He then dragged a document he wanted to translate into it to show how it works. (You can also start a translation by dragging the document onto a MacLinkPlus alias.) Highlight the document name and click the Translate button to get a list of options you can translate the document into. If you don't know which option to use for the translation, one that includes MacLink translator is the most likely to translate it completely.
You can also translate from one PC form to another PC form, so if you have a friend with a PC spreadsheet that he cannot read on his PC, you can use your Mac and MacLinkPlus to translate it into a PC spreadsheet that he can use. It happens!
Geof said that in the Windows world, they couldn't do anything.
MacLinkPlus will sometimes identify an incorrect suffix on a program, and will offer to correct the creator and type to fix it - to automatically insert the correct suffix.
You can set Preferences so it saves translations to whatever folder you want. It can open the destination folder so you can see if that is where you want to put it. You can choose to save to a PC disk. You can set other defaults in Preferences, such as whether to translate to DOS 8.3 file names or to Windows 95 long file names.
Clicking the View button in MacLinkPlus gave a text document view of the spreadsheet that was highlighted and the figures were probably tab delimited.
There are a few freeware and shareware workarounds, but nothing that does it all, or as easily as MacLinkPlus. If it is a business document with a graphic, you get it all.
Stephen said that the latest MacAddict had a shareware program, icWord, which can read Microsoft Word documents. It costs $24.95 with a CD.
AppleWorks 5 came with MacLinkPlus translators, and AppleWorks 6.2 has the translators back in. If you can update to AppleWorks 6.2 you can translate most of the e-mail attachments you are likely to get.
Some e-mail programs can read HTML files or attachments. If you want to send a graphic using e-mail, send it as an attachment (and not in EPS, Encapsulated Post Script, format). Usually figuring out how to include an attachment is not more difficult that dragging the attachment to a paperclip or other designated area.
E-mail attachments that end in .exe or .vbs are programs that you cannot read in the Macintosh operating system. Stephen recommends that, in today's environment, if you see one of these in an attachment, trash it immediately.
Sometimes Excel or Word capabilities do exceed those of AppleWorks so that no translation is possible. For example an Excel document may contain macros where there is no AppleWorks equivalent.
If you have FileMaker, or AppleWorks, for both a PC and for a Mac, the files are in the same format on both machines and can be read without a translator.
Other Meeting News
TIP: To jump to the original from an alias, highlight the alias, use the pull down menu or open-apple (Command)-I and use the keystroke shift-open-apple-R command to get the original, Or, with Macintosh 8.6 or later, control-click on the icon to see what you can do, and it will include Show Original as an option.
Stephen brought stuff that Gail Murphy Glore brought from Mac Expo, and we had a drawing. Hartley drew the Washington Apple Pi news magazine and CD. Ruth won the Adobe pen and notebook. Sidney won the Apple mouse shaped sports stop watch. Midge took the "I love NY" button. Richard and Stephen each took a Cassidy and Green glow in the dark. Geof took the mouse pad. Warren got the product sampler CDs. Stephen got the cap, and Geof got a mouse pad and an Adobe pass case.
Hartley took pictures of the people who attended the meeting for possible use on the web site. He promised to send each person their own picture, and not to use for publication if they do not want him to.
