[comp.sys.next] Writenow on Next vs. Macs

rlwald@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Robert L. Wald) (02/20/90)

  Is the format of writenow files on a Next machine the same as on a mac?
Or is there a conversion utility. If there is, does it preserve all of the
formatting? Thanks.

-Rob Wald

dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) (02/20/90)

In article <13985@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> rlwald@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Robert L. Wald) writes:
>
>  Is the format of writenow files on a Next machine the same as on a mac?

Yes.  Absolutely yes.  Well, 99.44% yes :-).

The data fork of a Macintosh WriteNow document and a NeXT document share the same format. In fact, I share NeXT disk (via a gatorbox) with a mac, and can work on the same document from either system (though not simultaneously, of course).

The 0.66% that doesn't work is:
	1. Mac graphics don't work on the NeXT (they show as boxes).
	2. NeXT graphics don't work on the mac (they show as boxes) (they
*might* print to a laserwriter, but I haven't checked).
	3. The Mac and the NeXT use slightly different character sets.
The NeXT WriteNow knows this, and converts automatically.  The Mac WriteNow
does NOT.  The most popular characters affected are the bullet and the
four typesetter's quotes.

--
Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu  UUCP: {convex,uunet}!uiucuxc!dorner