Table Of ContentREAD ME FIRST BOOK
Edited by Jerry Borrell, Ediror-in-Chief, Macworld Magazine
Foreword by Jean-Louis Gassee
NO NONSENSE ADVICE FROM THE EXPERTS
• THE FRIENDLY AND AUTHORITATIVE GUIDE FOR
FIRST-TIME USERS • CHOOSE THE PRINTER,
MONITOR, WORD PROCESSOR, DESKTOP PUBLISHER,
SPREADSHEET AND MIX OF UTILITIES THAT'S RIGHT
FOR YOU!
-.
It~ "YOUR USER'S GUIDE TO THE MACINTOSH® GALAXY"
- JEAN-LOUIS GASSEE
B 0 0 K 8
Me First
Macintosh experts
on
p,roduets and technology
.;,~acitJ,tosh
Edited by Jerry Borrell
Editor-in-Chief, Macwodcl
.,1!11!'
Foreword by Jean-Louis Gassee
Chairman/CEO, Be Labs Inc .
.Fm:mer Presidenl, Apple Products Division
It~
H U 0 K t1
JOG 13ooks Worldwide. Inc.
An Inremational Data Group Company
San Mateo, California 94402
.
IV
Macworld Read Me First Book
Published by
IDG Books Worldwide, Inc.
An International Data Group company
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San Mateo, CA 94402
(415) 358-1250
Copyright © 1991 by lOG Books Worldwide, Inc. All rights reserved. No part
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Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 91-75702
ISBN 1-878058-19-3
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Project Editor
jeremy judson
Editor-in-Chief
Michael E. McCarthy
Copy Editor
Felicity O'Meara
Production Manager
Lana ]. Olson
Te.·d Prepat·ation a11d Proojreadi11g
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bulexer
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Itifomzation Graphics
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Chapter-Opening At·t
Peppy White
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Contents at a Glance
1
Choosing the Right Word Processor
2
Deciding on a Page-Makeup Program 15
3
Fonts 55
4
Macintosh Databases 81
5
Managing Your Personal Finances on the Mac 103
6
Picking a Printer 119
7
Hard Disks and Other Storage Devices 137
8
Video and the Macintosh: A Developing Relationship 155
9
Choosing a Monitor for Your Mac 171
10
Understanding System Software 189
11
Utilities for the Macintosh 211
12
HyperCard 239
13
Backup- Defending Your Data 261
Index 279
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... xv
Contents at a Glance ....................................................................................................... vi
Foreword ........................................................................................................................ xvii
Introduction ..................................................................................................................... xx
Chapter 1: Choosing the Right Word Processor
by Robert C. Eckhardt ............................................................................ 1
Personal and business correspondence
000 ................ oo .. oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 2
Impersonal correspondence
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo .... o .... o .... o .. ooo .... o .. oooo 3
Table: Winning word processors ......
0000000 ............ 000000 .. 00 .... 000000 .. 000000 .... 000.4
Business reports
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoOOooo .... o.ooooooooooooo ...... ooooooOOooo ............ o .. o5
Academic papers .. 6
o .. o .... o .............. o .. o ................ o .. o ............ o .... o ................ o .......
Displaying and manipulating graphics ........ 6
00 ................................ 0 ........ 0
Counting words in a document .. 6
oo ............................ o .... 00 ........................
Forms and tables 7
o ...... oooooooooooooo .... oooooooooooooooooo ...... oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo .... o .. o ......
Brochures and newsletters .. 8
o .. 0 .... 0 .... ooo 000 00 0 000000 000 ...... 0 .............. OOo .... 0 0 .. oo .... o .. 0 0
Manuals and books ..
o .. o .............. o .. ooooo ....................... o .. o .... o ........ oooo .... o .. o .... o10
Productivity enhancements ........
0 0 ...... o OOOoOoO .... 0 ...... 0 00 ...... 0 .... o .. o ...... o .... o .. 0 .... 011
Outlining your options ..
oo .................. oooooo .............................................. 011
Selecting your style
oo ........ oo ...... oo .............. o ............ oo ... oo .. oooo .... o .... ooo .... oo .. o11
Locating and replacing text
oooooooooooooooooooooo ...... ooooooooooo .................. oooo ...... o12
Reading files from other word processors ....
oooo ............ oooooo ............ ooooool 2
Play iL again, Sam ....
oo .......... oo .. oo .................... oo ............ ooo .... o .................. o12
Somerl1ing to write home about
oooo ........ o .... o .. o .... o .......... oooooooooooooooo ...... oo .... o13
Sutntnary
OOOOOOOOOoOOOOOOoOOO .... o .... o .. ooooooooooo .... o ...... oooooooooo .... O .. ooOOoooooo .... o.oooooo .... ooooo1 3
\'\!here to buy ..
o .. oooooooooooooooooooooo ..... oooo .... o ...... oooooooooooo .... o .. oooooooooo .... oooo .... o.ooooo14
Chapter 2: Deciding on a Page-Makeup Program
by Steve Roth ........................................................................................ 15
Design-intensive programs ......................................................................... 16
Long-document programs ........................................................................... 16
Inexpensive programs ................................................................................. 16
No category .................................................................................................. 17
PageMaker- the most popular of all ................................................... 17
Quark:XPress-power in page-makeup ............................................... 19
Tops in typographies ......................................................................... 22
The color separation advantage ........................................................ 23
ReadySetGo -the poor stepchild of page makeup
on the Mac .............................................................................................. 24
Design Studio-direct descendant of ReadySetGo ............................. 24
Vemura Publisher-advanced features for long documents .............. 25
Page makeup with style to spare ...................................................... 26
FrameM aker-page layout using common live files .......................... 32
Page layout for authoring and document processing ...................... 32
Robust feaLUres for creating documents ........................................... 33
Imerleaf Publisher 3.5-d1e long-document, technical
program ................................................................................................... 37
Springboard Publisher-the affordable alternative ............................. 38
Personal Press-srricdy for beginners ................................................. 38
Publish Ir! Easy-a lor of bang for rhe buck ....................................... 42
RagTime 3- combined strength for business users ............................ 45
Live spreadsheet power .................................................................... 48
Multi-Ad Creator-the mulribyour approach ...................................... 49
Choosing and using ..................................................................................... 50
Sumn1ary ...................................................................................................... 52
Where to buy ............................................................................................... 53
Chapter 3: Fonts
by Erfert Fenton ..................................................................................... 55
Types of type: a brief history of Mac fonts ............................................... 56
BitJnapped fonts ......................................................................... , .......... 56
Outline fonts ........................................................................................... 56
Font installation ........................................... , ............................................... 59
Scenario 1: Font/DA 1\·fover ................................................................... 60
Scenario 2: Adobe Type Manager .......................................................... 64
Scenario 3: Suitcase II or MasteJjuggler ................................................ 67
Scenario 4: the best of all three worlds ................................................. 68
The hard disk route ................................................................................ 72
Fom management ........................................................................................ 73
Take control of your font menu ............................................................ 73
Creating and editing typefaces ................................................................... 74
Type design programs ............................................................................ 74
Type effects programs ............................................................................ 74
Effects pecialist ................................................................................. 75
LetraStucl io ......................................................................................... 75
TypeSt yler .......................................................................................... 75
Smart Art ............................................................................................. 76
Para font ............................................................................................. 76
FomMonger ........................................................................................ 76
Summary ...................................................................................................... 78
\X'hcre to buy ............................................................................................... 78
Chapter 4: Macintosh Databases
by Charles Seiter .................................................................................. 81
Flat-file databases-nothing fancy ............................................................ 83
Basic data ..................................................................................................... 84
Business lancl ............................................................................................... 89
Double Helix 3.5 .................................................................................... 90
Omnis ...................................................................................................... 92
4th Dimension ........................................................................................ 92
Fox Pro/Mac 2.0 ..................................................................................... 95
No programs? ............................................................................................... 97
Blue connections ......................................................................................... 98
Big-rime conneclions ................................................................................... 99
Summary field ............................................................................................ 100
Summary .................................................................................................... 100
\X1hcrc to buy ............................................................................................. 101
Chapter 5: Managing Your Personal Finances on the Mac
by Alan Slay ........................................................................................ 103
The basic. general personal finance programs ........................................ 104
Table: Chcck,vriter programs ............................................................... 105
Table: Investment tracking programs .................................................. 106
l'rtbfe: Tax preparation programs ........................................................ 107
Investment management applications ...................................................... 109
Tax preparation programs ......................................................................... 112
The Heizer software category ................................................................... 113
The last word in personal finance ............................................................ 115
Summing up ............................................................................................... 115
Summa1y .................................................................................................... 116
Where to buy ............................................................................................. 116
Chapter 6: Picking a Printer
by Jim Heid ......................................................................................... 119
Printer categories ....................................................................................... 120
Dot-matrix printers-printing with impact ........................................ 123
Ink-jet printers ...................................................................................... 123
Style Writer vs. DeskW riter ............................................................... 124
Laser printers ......................................................................................... 125
Quick Draw, PostScript, or both? ..................................................... 125
Evaluating engines ........................................................................... 126
What constitutes good performance? .............................................. 127
Optimal control ................................................................................ 127
Send in the clones: low-budget PostScript ..................................... 128
PC patch jobs ................................................................................... 129
Laser printer picks ........................................................................... 129
Color printers ........................................................................................ 132
Low-end color ink-jet printers ......................................................... 132
Mid-range color printers .................................................................. 133
High-end color printers ................................................................... 134
Sum1nary .................................................................................................... 135
\'V'here to buy ............................................................................................. 135
Chapter 7: Hard Disks and Other Storage Devices
by Cheryl England .............................................................................. 137
A quick overview ...................................................................................... 138
Hard drives ................................................................................................ 140
Removable-canridge drives ....................................................................... 143
Erasable optical drives .............................................................................. 147
Deciding what extra features you want ................................................... 149
Assessing the components of storage devices ......................................... 150
A question of price ................................................................... :. ............... 150
Service and support ................................................................................... 151
Summary .................................................................................................... 152
\'V'here to buy ............................................................................................. 152
Chapter 8: Video and the Macintosh: A Developing Relationship
by Franklin Tessler, M.D., and Peter Marx ................................... 155
A guided tour of video applicarions ......................................................... 156
Video i1nport ......................................................................................... 157
Still video cameras- the portable alternative ............................... 158
Real-time video-motion video capture ....................................... 158
Saving disk space with image compression ................................... 159
Viewing live images on the \1ac with video display .......................... 160
Video overlay ........................................................................................ 160
Converting the Mac's video signal with video output ........................ 161
Video output on a shoestring ......................................................... 162
Video control-the \tlacintosh as editor ............................................ 164
Creating multimedia presentations with low-end video
controllers ......................................................................................... 165
Macimosh and video: guidelines for choosing equipment ..................... 166
Macintosh 128K and 512K .................................................................... 166
!'vlacintosh Plus. SE, Portable. and Classic ........................................... 167
Macintosh SE/30 and LC ....................................................................... 167
Macintosh II, Ilx, llcx, Ilci, llfx, Ilsi, and beyond ............................... 167
Digital video and multimedia ................................................................... 167
Through the looking glass -the future of Macintosh video ................. 168
ummary .................................................................................................... 170
\Xi here to buy ............................................................................................. 170
Chapter 9: Choosing a Monitor for Your Mac
by Robert C. Eckhardt ........................................................................ 171
What kind of monitor do you need? ........................................................ 172
Surveying the real cswte ........................................................................... 173
Pixel density ............................................................................................... 175
What to look for in a moniwr .................................................................. 177
Distortion ............................................................................................... 177
Focus ..................................................................................................... 178
Moire patterns and convergence on color monitors .......................... 178
Antiglare, brighmess, and contrast ...................................................... 179
Phosphor color ..................................................................................... 180
Purity and gray-scale uniformity in color monitors ............................ 181
Flicker and text quality ......................................................................... 181
Utility soft-;vare ........................................................................................... 182
