Installing Drag & Drop Translators

Once you have copied the drag & drop translators applications onto you hard drive, they are installed. If the finder does not allow you to drag documents to them, you may need to rebuild the desktop file or set the correct file type of the file (use CTC application to set the file type, see below).

To rebuild the desktop file, restart your computer and hold down the command and the option key on startup. The finder will ask you if you would like to rebuild the desktop file.

Requires system 7 or later, and Macintoshes that support Color QuickDraw (sorry no 68000 CPU ie. Macintosh Plus, or Macintosh SE's, etc... are not supported) and enough memory to copy the input graphics file into memory.

Note: AppleScript is required for AppleScript scripting support.

Input file formats supported:

• Input files of type "PGNT" are Macintosh B&W Bitmap paint files. They can be converted to Window's BMP or Macintosh PICT depending on the preference settings (see below).
• Input files of type "SCRN" are Macintosh startup screen files. They can be converted to Window's BMP or Macintosh PICT depending on the preference settings (see below).
• "TIFF" input files can be converted to Window's BMP or Macintosh PICT depending on the preference settings (see below). If the source file has the suffix ".TIFF" or ".TIF" it will be convert to the output format suffix ".PIC" or ".BMP".
• Window MetaFile object oriented graphics format ".WMF" input files can be converted to Window's BMP or Macintosh PICT depending on the preference settings (see below).

  If the source file has the suffix ".WMF" it will be convert to the output format suffix ".PIC" or ".BMP".

• Input files of type "PICT" are native Macintosh graphics file; they may be black & white or color. They will be converted into a bitmap and translated into Window's BMP file format.

  If the source file has the suffix ".PICT" or ".PIC" it will be converted to the ".BMP" suffix.

• If the input files are in Window's BMP file format they will be converted into Macintosh PICT files. The Window bitmap graphics files may be Black & White, 16 color or 256 color bitmaps or 24bit color images.

  If the source file has the suffix ".BMP" it will be converted to the ".PICT" suffix.

PICT / BMP will read GIF files using QuickTime, the Unisys LWZ Pat is covered by Apple's QuickTime license with Unisys.

Note: For detail information on the above graphics file formats consult the Graphics reference documents. It contains file format information, and other file exchange information.

Output file formats supported:

The graphics document created by the application have two icons that indicate what format the file is in.

BMP
The program graphics file with the following icon indicates a translation from Macintosh PICT file format to Window's BMP file format. The suffix ".BMP" also indicates it is in Window's BMP bitmap format.  

PICT
The program graphics file with the following icon indicates a translation from Window's BMP file format to Macintosh PICT file format. The suffix ".PICT" also indicates it is in Macintosh PICT format.

Open... Selecting "Open..." from the file menu prompts a user to select the file of type "PICT" to be translated. This has the same affect as an user dropping a Macintosh PICT file on to the application's icon. It will result in the PICT file being converted into a Window's BMP file using the current preference settings.

PICT format input file name translation is handled as follows:

• If the file name ends in the suffix ".PICT" (case does not matter), this suffix will be deleted.
• The suffix ".BMP" will be added to the end of the file name.
• If the file name is too long, ".BMP" will replace the last 4 characters of the file name.

Preference... Selecting "Preference...", displays the Options settings.  

PICT / BMP History...

V1.1.0 Released to public
V1.2.0 Added Saving Preferences.
V1.3.0 Added reading TIFF, PGNT, SCRN support.
V1.5.0 Added native Power Macintosh support, support for alias to preference files and support for pasting pictures
V1.51 Fix paste bug, fix possible bug with drawing preview image, added convert to clipboard option v1.6-1.7 were not released to the public.
V1.81 Added support for Window's BMP RLE encoded pictures and Window BMP 24bit Color to PICT support.
v1.82 Added support for Window Metafile translation and move string constants to resource fork for localization.
V2.00 Added support for QuickTime v2.5 graphics importer's. QuickTime V2.5 is not required, but when install PICT / BMP will read several new file formats include: JPEG, PhotoShop, and GIF.
(see details in the About PICT / BMP under the AppleGuide). Added About AppleGuide guide.
Fix some minor updating problems.
Added some support for Internet Config file type matching
V2.01 Updated BMP reading routines to fix bug in RLE decoding of large BMP files.
V2.02 Updated TIF reading routines to support 24bit RGB TIF.