Jun 18 2010

apple finally fixes CS3 file open/save/place problem

It’s been awhile, but this is a quick one.

Way back in June of 2008 I posted a fix to a problem with Adobe InDesign CS3 on a Mac. After one update it suddenly became impossible to open a file, place, save or export. I provided a link to a workaround script. If you’re like me, every time I installed an update it started a treasure-hunt through my file system to find and run the script so that I could use InDesign (until I upgraded to CS4).

Well, at long last, Apple decided to fix the problem! Wow! Only it only took them 2 years. The fix comes with the latest OS X update. If you are still using CS3 it’s time to update your system.


Dec 11 2009

composing html in mac mail.app

This is a quick tip to demonstrate how to use HTML content in Mac Mail. I assume that everyone is aware of the various admonitions against using HTML to compose email, however I only use this for a relatively small mailing list of people whose mail clients recognize my email address. The question of how to do this came up recently as I was preparing to send off my annual holiday greeting.

Unlike Thunderbird and Outlook (and probably Entourage), Mac Mail does not provide any straightforward mechanism for composing HTML messages. There may have been a script, but I think it had been separated from the program during the upgrade to Snow Leopard. Nevertheless, I have found an easy way to accomplish this.

1. Compose the message in the HTML editor of your choice. You can even use CSS and probably Javascripting, though I have not tried the latter.

2. Upload the HTML file and any associated files to your web server.

3. Using Safari, surf to your page.

4. Choose File > Mail Contents of This Page:

fig1

5. This will begin a new message in Mail with the HTML neatly included, just as you had intended.

fig2

Happy Holidays!


Jun 19 2008

InDesign CS3 crashes on Open/Place/Save/Export (Intel Mac, OS X 10.5.3)

It was a dark and stormy night with the deadline for a project looming. All I needed to do was make a few changes to the piece in InDesign. I had not used InDesign since installing a CS3 update several days before so had to re-launch (normally it stays running in the background). Everything launched normally until I tried to open the document. InDesign immediately crashed. I tried again and the same thing happened. Even opening from Bridge caused InDesign to crash. I was able to create a New document but InDesign would crash when I tried to Save or Export.

I fired off a crash report to Adobe and then searched Google for a solution. Most people attribute this to the updates to CS3 or OS X 10.5.3 and the consensus seems to be that Apple needs to come up with a fix. However, because Apple and Adobe no longer play nice together they are (select one) a) slow, b) unwilling, c) unable because it’s really Adobe’s problem to fix. So, short of a lightening-induced power outage or system crash, this is the worst place to be. There was, however, a common thread among the blogs for helpful workarounds.

I first tried 3 recommendations from the Adobe Tech Notes that were also recommended by several bloggers, none of which solved the problem. I tried trashing the InDesign Preferences. No help there either. I re-read the Tech Notes carefully and since recommendation 1. is to uninstall Version Cue I was a little mystified when the uninstall package was not available, but since I don’t use Version Cue I was not concerned and went on to the other recommendations. But the careful re-read suggested an entirely different fix was available if these symptoms started after installing the Version Cue update. I didn’t pay attention to which components of CS3 were in the last update but since the problem seemed to start after I installed them I decided to try this out.

The first Tech Note contains an inconspicuous link to an entirely new Tech Note which held the magic key. A patch is available to download which finally fixed the problem. Well, not entirely. In the middle of my now frantic edit session, the power did go out…