Force a CD or DVD
to Eject
Here are some things to
try if you have a CD or
DVD that refuses to eject
from your Mac.
Launch Disk Utility from
the Utilities folder inside
the Applications folder. Select
the name of the disc,
then click the Eject icon in
the window’s button bar.
Restart your Mac and hold
down the mouse button
after the startup chime.
(This trick ejects all removable
media). This
trick won’t work with a
cordless mouse.
Launch Terminal, also in
the Utilities folder, and
type “drutil tray eject”
(without the quotes) then
press return.
There are other ways to try
to force a CD or DVD out
of a drive, but the above
methods are easy and
won’t risk damaging your
Mac or OS X.
Tip
2
Rebuilding
the Classic Desktop
In pre-Mac OS X systems,
it was sometimes necessary
to “rebuild the desktop”
because files would
lose their icons and documents
would forget their
applications. To do this,
you would hold down the
Command and Option
keys during startup.
Since Mac OS X includes a
full-blown Mac OS 9 in its
Classic environment, the
same problem can occur.
But to fix it, you open the
Classic pref pane (System Preferences> Classic),
click
the Advanced tab, then
click the Rebuild Desktop
button. After that, documents
should know which
Classic applications they
belong to.
Tip 3
Launch Acrobat Faster
Launching Acrobat can
take a while, as it loads
and verifies plug-ins. To
quickly launch Acrobat
without the plug-ins, hold
the Shift key when you double-click the Acrobat
application icon.
PC Graphics Report
Tip 4
Can’t
Save PDFs as PDF
The Print dialog box in
Mac OS X has a “Save as
PDF…”button, but the
button will be grayed out
in Acrobat, Adobe Reader
or Preview if the current
document is a password protected
PDF. This makes
sense, since otherwise
you’d be able to create an
unprotected PDF from a
protected PDF.
Tip 5
Can’t
Use Embedded Fonts in Illustrator
When you choose to embed
fonts when saving an
Illustrator document in
AI, PDF or EPS formats,
those fonts are available
for viewing and printing,
but not for editing the document — the computer
on which the editing is
done must already have
the fonts installed.
David Creamer, in Mac Design
Nov/Dec 04, pg.94
Tip 6
Easier
Circles in Illustrator
In Illustrator, if you know
where a circle should begin,
you can press the
Command key while using
the Ellipse tool. This lets
you begin the circle’s arc
exactly where you click,
instead of at a virtual “corner”
of an imaginary enclosing
box. Use this tip
when tracing a template,
where drawing an ellipse
from arc to arc makes it
much easier to align.
Deke McClelland
Tip 7 Remove
PDF Crops in InDesign
When placing a PDF into
an InDesign document,
and the PDF has crop
marks, you can trim those
crop marks off while placing
it: enable the Show
Import Options checkbox
in the Place dialog, then in
the Crop To pop-up
menu, choose Trim.
David Creamer, in Mac Design
Nov/Dec 04, pg.93 Tip 8
Colorize
Grayscale in InDesign
Colorizing a grayscale image
in InDesign takes a few
steps: copy the picture
frame on top of itself by
choosing Edit> Copy and
then Edit> Paste in Place.
Use the Direct Selection
tool to select the image in
the frontmost frame, then
delete it.With the front
frame still selected, fill it
with your desired color.
Send this frame to the
back (Object> Arrange>
Send to Back). Select the
frame with the image in it
and change its Blend
Mode to Luminosity (in
the Transparency palette).
PC Graphics Report 09/04, pg.9
Tip 9
Content Tool Trick
for QuarkXPress
When using the Content
tool in QuarkXPress, you
don’t have to switch back
to the Item tool to Copy or
Cut an item. Just add the
Option key to your Cut or
Copy key command: Option-
Command-C to
Copy, or Option-Command-
X to Cut.
David Blatner
Tip 10
Convert to Outlines
in Illustrator?
Setting Memory
in Photoshop CS
To set memory preferences
for Photoshop CS, go to
Photoshop menu> Preferences>
Memory & Image
Cache. By default, it’s set to
50% of your Mac’s total
RAM. Adobe says that images
in Photoshop CS RAM
three times as much RAM as
in previous versions. Even
though Photoshop releases
its RAM to other applications
as they need it, don’t
set the amount to more
than 70%–80%, as the Mac
OS needs some. If your Mac
slows down at this setting,
change it to 50%.
You can see whether you’ve
set Photoshop’s memory
high enough by looking in
the status bar (at the bottom
of a document window).
Click on the disclosure
triangle and choose
Scratch Sizes. The number
on the left indicates the
RAM used and scratch disk
space allocated to Photoshop.
The number on the
right indicates the amount
of RAM that Photoshop
can use for image storage
or scratch disk. If the left number is higher than the
right number, increase the
memory percentage under
preferences.
If you have less than 1GB
of RAM on a singleprocessor
Mac, download
the Adjusted Refresh plugin,
available free on the
Adobe website at
www.adobe.com/support/downl
oads/main.html. It reduces
Photoshop’s initial allocation
of RAM and scratch
disk, and speeds the preview
of some filter updates
However, it may slow performance
on systems with
more than 1 GB of RAM or
that use multiprocessors.
Fix
1 Another
Non-Virus for Mac OS X
The prospect of an actual
virus for Mac OS X is such
big news that many lesser
publications and websites
pounce on the idea. The
latest is the “Opener” virus, which cannot infect
your Mac unless you manually
launch it and then
provide your administrator
password. The Opener
virus is capable of causing
tremendous damage, but
then so is any other installer
that you give your
administrative password
to. Common sense advice:
never provide your administrator
password to
an untrusted application
or installer. For further details
on Opener, see www.macfixit.com.
Fix 2 Possible
Fix for Safari Slowdowns
Some people experience a
significant delays or a
slowdown in Apple’s Safari
Web browser after using it
for a while. One possible
reason is that Safari stores
icons for bookmarked Web
pages. To delete the icons:
Go to
Users/username/Library/Safari
/Icons
Delete everything in the
Icons folder
Highlight the Icons folder
and choose File> Get Info.
Click the triangle next to
Ownership & Permissions
and change the Owner to
you and set the access to“Read Only.” Then set the
other access pop-up
menus to “No access.” This
will prevent new icons
from being added to the
Icons folder.
Fix 3 Repair
Permissions After Software Updates
It’s a good idea to repair
permissions after installing
system and application
updates. Here’s
how: Open Applications/
Utilities/Disk Utility. In
the left column, click on
the name of your hard
drive. Click the “Repair
Disk Permissions” button.
Repairing permissions only
works on a drive that
has Mac OS X installed.
Tips and Tricks brought to you courtesy of Design Tools Monthly:
www.design-tools.com
