Textures and OS X, Problems and Solutions

Installation

• The Textures Installer doesn't recognize the original Textures CD-ROM disk.
  This is a problem with some OS X systems with non-English languages which have a different encoding for the ® character in the name of the CD-ROM. You can install Textures manually (see Installing Textures by hand), or update to Textures 2.1.7 or later, which we believe finally resolves this issue.
  
  

Fonts

• ATM (the Adobe Type Manager) doesn't work.
  The fonts in the screen display don't look right.
  OS 9 and OS X Classic require a recent version of ATM, version 4.6 or later. A free download is available from Adobe Systems. See Textures & ATM for more information.
  
  

Printing

• Textures can't print.
  Textures says “I can't open the printer.”
  Make sure that the printer driver for OS 9 is installed. Use the Chooser to select the printer for Textures, just as if you were printing from OS 9. (Printing from Classic applications such as Textures does not go through the OS X printing mechanisms, so the OS X printer setup is not used here.)
  
  
• Textures can't print to my EPSON/USB printer.
  Textures can't print to my Rendevous printer.
  Some printers are not accessible to Classic applications. Rendevous printers are simply not visible; EPSON uses their own USB interface for some printers, such as the Stylus Photo R300, which does not support printing from Classic.
  
  Workaround [OS X 10.3, Panther]: use the Apple LaserWriter driver to print to a PostScript file, then open the PostScript file with OS X Preview to print. Note that Preview for Panther can also save/print to PDF files. (To date our experience with Preview for Panther has been generally excellent; it is fast and has been reliable, notably more so than Adobe Acrobat 6.0, alas.)
  
  Workaround [OS X, all versions]: use the Apple LaserWriter driver and Adobe Distiller (Classic) to print to a PDF file, then use Acrobat or Preview to print the PDF file.
  
  
• I can't choose the LaserWriter driver.
  Turn on AppleTalk in the OS X Network Preferences panel. (It is not necessary to have a printer connected to use the LaserWriter driver, nor is it even necessary to enable AppleTalk to allow the Chooser to select the LaserWriter; the Chooser may complain, but pay it no attention—it will still select the LaserWriter!)
  
  
• Each time I reboot or restart Classic, I have to select the printer again in the Chooser.
  This is an irritating little bug that comes and goes with different versions of OS X; right now it's back again in OS X 10.3.7, and it will probably disappear again in a future release. (Tiger seems to have cured it again.)
  
  

Clipboard

• I can't copy and paste from OS X applications to or from Textures.
  This was a problem in some early releases of OS X; it has been fixed since OS X 10.1.2 or thereabouts.
  

Files and Documents

• I can't open my Textures documents.
  This is probably a problem with file types, of one form or another. If you can't double-click on a Textures file to open it, try "rebuilding the desktop", from the Advanced tab of the Classic Preferences panel.
  
  
• I can't read other people's TeX documents.
  You can set text files to be Textures documents with the Textures Typer application, available from our FTP server (TexturesTyper). You can drag documents to the Textures icon in the Dock to open them. Holding down Command and Option keys while dragging to the Dock will override file types, and allow any type of document to be dropped on Textures or any other application. Textures 2.1.7 and later allows Option/Open for any file type.
  
  

PDF (Portable Document Format)

• How do I create PDF files?
  Generally speaking, you “print” to a PostScript file (using the Apple LaserWriter printer driver), then process that PostScript file to produce a PDF document.
  To process the PostScript file, you have several options, which may be summarized as Adobe Distiller (Classic), Adobe Distiller (OS X native), or OS X Preview (Panther). (There's an old story about "good, fast, or cheap: choose any two" that may apply here.) For the best results and most flexible options, we recommend Adobe Distiller, part of the Acrobat package. Distiller is part of a commercial package from Adobe Systems, the creators of the PostScript language and the PDF format. There is an academic price for the Acrobat package; see Adobe Systems for current information.
  As of this writing, Acrobat/Distiller 7 is the current version, and is an OS X native application. Earlier versions (Distiller 5 and before) run in the Classic environment, and are automatically available from within the LaserWriter driver as part of the “Save as File” options; this is surely the most convenient method, as it allows PDF generation in a single step.
  With the advent of OS X 10.3 (Panther), the Preview application can itself read and process PostScript files to make PDF files. We have had generally good results making PDF documents with Preview: although in our experience it lacks the ability to include PDF hyperlinks, and is not as capable as Distiller in handling sophisticated PostScript effects, it is fast, reliable, and inexpensive.
  

  We welcome user reports of experiences with the various PDF producers and readers, and Philip Nelson takes us up on our offer:
  Here is a problem that may affect your customers, and its solution. Any further insights from you would be welcome.
  I just upgraded to OSX 10.4 Tiger. Suddenly I have lost the ability to print to AdobePDF using Distiller5 in Classic. (This worked fine till I upgraded.) Textures users are probably among the last remaining users of Distiller5, so read on.
  PrintMonitor says, "initializing distiller" then "Pages to print" counts down to 1, then "Closing distiller". But no output .pdf file nor log file appears (nor does any .ps file appear). I reinstalled Distiller5, including the AdobePDF driver, which did not help.
  Solution: see http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@588.xfSre70PleB.1@.3bba5b82 which says "Turn off the optimize for fast view and the embed thumbnails in the job options."
  Worked for me. Whew.