This file contains late-breaking information that was not available when the printed documentation for Aldus FreeHand 3.0 went to press. This information supplements the information provided in the new Aldus FreeHand 3.1 ReadMe file. It includes the following sections:
1. Corrections to the Aldus FreeHand 3.0 Documentation Set
2. Working with Illustrations
3. Working with Elements
4. Working with Images
5. Working with Text
6. Importing and Exporting
7. Printing
Please read this file before you begin working with Aldus FreeHand 3.1. We also recommend that you print a copy of this file and keep it with your documentation.
“Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual”; “Learning Aldus FreeHand”; “Making the Most of Aldus FreeHand: New Features and Tips from the Pros”; “Aldus FreeHand and Commercial Printing”
• The appearance of PANTONE Colors in dialog boxes and on the “Colors” palette is slightly different than is illustrated throughout the documentation. For example, the documentation illustrations may show a color listed as “272 CV” on the “Colors” palette, in the “Colors” dialog box, and on all “Color” pop-up menus, but that same color will actually appear as “PANTONE 272 CV” on your screen.
“Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual”
• Chapter 9, page 289: The text incorrectly states that Aldus FreeHand does not automatically split paths in a tiled fill. Aldus FreeHand will automatically split paths in a tiled fill when necessary.
• Chapter 3, page 82: The caption for the second illustration should read: “Second handle aligns with connector point and the following point.”
• Chapter 4, page 109: The text should state that a line (not a box) appears when you drag the text tool (horizontal unless text alignment is set to “Vertical”). This line defines the width of the text block, or the height if the text block is vertical.
• Chapter 1, page 33: The tip is incorrect. If you enter a bleed value and then change units of measure, the bleed value will convert to the new unit of measure.
• Chapter 4, page 128: The tip at the top of the page regarding the use of a nonbreaking space is incorrect. Disregard it.
• Chapter 5, page 155: Text that was grouped with a path and transformed retains its transformation attributes after ungrouping, rather than reverting to its untransformed state.
• Chapter 5, page 160: Step 2 is incomplete in the following procedure:
To edit intermediate steps in a blend, you must:
1) Select the blended element and ungroup it.
2) Select the intermediate element(s) and ungroup them.
3) Select the steps you want to modify and change them.
• Chapter 7, page 243: Styles that are applied to elements can be removed from the “Styles” palette. Elements to which a removed style had been applied will be unaffected.
• Appendix A, page 307: The solution should say, “Split element from the path using the ‘Split element’ command...” (not the “Split paths” command).
• Appendix C, page 318: You can store the defaults template in the folder containing Aldus FreeHand or in the Aldus folder in your System folder. (The appendix text only mentions the folder containing Aldus FreeHand.)
• Appendix A, page 314: You cannot use “UserPrep” from Aldus FreeHand 2.0 to print PostScript fills from Aldus FreeHand 3.0. You must convert the “PostScript” fills to “Custom” fills. (To convert to a fill, select the object, choose “Fill and line” from the “Attributes” menu, and reassign the object a FreeHand 3.0 custom fill.) Note that when you convert “PostScript” fills from FreeHand 2.0, FreeHand 3.0 adds a percent sign (%) followed by a space to the beginning of each line of text in the “Fill and line” edit box. If you have customized “UserPrep” to create your own “PostScript” fills, you must open the “Fill and line” edit box and delete the percent signs and spaces to reactivate your routines.
“Learning Aldus FreeHand”
• Pages 124, 129, and 141: Point and handle locations shown in dialog boxes may vary slightly (usually by less than one point) from the locations of those points and handles in the tutorial files on the Aldus FreeHand disks.
“Aldus FreeHand and Commercial Printing”
• Page 37: A step in the spot color procedure under “Desktop separation options” is missing. The procedure should read:
1. Export EPS file from Aldus FreeHand.
2. Place EPS file in Aldus PageMaker publication.
3. Apply spot color to EPS element.
4. Print separations from Aldus PageMaker.
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2. WORKING WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
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Memory
• SuperClock! version 3.5 may cause serious memory problems for Aldus FreeHand, particularly when printing using the Print Monitor. If you encounter problems with Aldus FreeHand while using SuperClock!, upgrade to SuperClock! version 3.9, or disable SuperClock! by removing it from your System folder.
• If the screen image deteriorates when you hold down the Option key and drag an element or transform an element, your system is running low on memory. If this occurs, save your illustration, quit Aldus FreeHand, and increase the memory allocation for Aldus FreeHand (if you are in MultiFinder) or increase available memory in one or more of the ways suggested in Appendix A of the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual.”
• Larger screens typically require more memory for drawing and other operations. If you have a screen larger than the standard 13" Apple monitor, you may need to allocate more memory to Aldus FreeHand (if you’re running under MultiFinder). You can also switch to keyline view (Command + K), reduce the bit depth of your monitor using the Control Panel, or take other steps to free memory as described in Appendix A of the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual.”
Screen display
• In some cases, 45-degree lines in keyline view may appear to be slightly jagged, due to the limits of screen resolution. If you have drawn the path as a straight line, the appearance on the screen will have no effect on the printed line.
• In keyline view, all parts of the screen—including guides, grids, and preview images—are rendered as 1-bit (black-and-white) images to speed up the screen redraw. If you preview an image by holding down the Option key as you drag an element, lines and fills will display in dithered black and white to simulate colored areas. If you need to see the color preview image of an element as you drag, switch to “Preview” mode (Command + K) before dragging.
• If you use 32-bit QuickDraw version 1.0 and use the Option + drag technique to rotate, reflect, or skew TIFF images in keyline view, you will see a black-and-white, undithered version of the image. (Images are usually dithered.) In some cases, very little of the image is displayed.
• When you transform (skew, rotate, etc.) an imported EPS file, its PICT preview image becomes transparent on screen. The EPS, however, will print correctly.
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3. WORKING WITH ELEMENTS
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• You can create transparent letter effects by setting the fill to “None” or by unchecking the “Fill” option in the “Fill and stroke” dialog box. The text will not appear transparent on your screen, but will print correctly on a PostScript printer.
• If, after using Aldus FreeHand, you want to open documents using the default preferences that came with the program, either delete the “FreeHandPrefs” file (located in the folder containing Aldus FreeHand or in the Aldus folder in your System folder), move it to a different folder, or rename it. If there is no “FreeHandPrefs” file when you open your illustrations, Aldus FreeHand reverts to its original preference settings. When you make more preference choices, Aldus FreeHand creates a new “FreeHandPrefs” file.
You can also revert to Aldus FreeHand’s default preferences by holding down Command + Option + Shift keys while choosing “Preferences…” from the File menu.
• Only two options in the standard Macintosh “Page Setup” dialog box (which appears when you choose the “Page Setup…” command from the File menu) affect Aldus FreeHand illustrations:
- “Font Substitution” tells the printer to substitute a bitmapped font for the corresponding PostScript font when the specified printer font is not available on the printer or on your computer.
- “Unlimited Downloadable Fonts” clears downloaded fonts from your printer memory after they are used, freeing memory for further fonts but slowing printing, since the fonts must be downloaded whenever they are needed. For more information about the “Unlimited Downloadable Fonts” option, see “Choosing fonts” in Chapter 9 of the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual.”
• If a basic shape and a group are selected, and you choose “Ungroup” from the Element menu, the basic shape is deselected before the elements are ungrouped. This prevents you from unintentionally converting a basic shape to a freeform path.
• In addition to closing paths that contain three or more points, as shown in “Closing and opening a path” in Chapter 3 of the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual,” you can close a path that contains only two points. (The path may appear to be open until you adjust the handles for one or both of the Bézier points.) You can create paths with only a single point.
• The nesting limit (the number of additional objects that can be joined to or grouped with an object) for composite paths is 20. The nesting limit for grouped elements is 8. These two limits are additive--you could join a maximum of 20 paths in succession to another path, and then perform up to eight grouping operations on the resulting composite path.
• The number of points on a composite path is limited to 2,000. In addition, no single subpath of a composite path can contain more than 1,000 points.
• Aligning more than 47 elements at a time (using the “Alignment…” command on the Element menu) may not yield accurate results.
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4. WORKING WITH IMAGES
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• Aldus FreeHand supports the Desktop Color Separations (DCS) standard. You can import and separate DCS files, provided you import the main file for the EPS graphic and all four separation files are present in the same folder as the main file. (Since Aldus FreeHand searches for and links to only the main DCS file, you won’t be warned if separation files are missing.) If the separation files are missing, the printed results will vary depending on the source of the DCS files.
If you print composites of an illustration containing a DCS image, the results will vary depending on the source of the DCS file. DCS placeholder files created by some programs contain only part of the PostScript necessary to print a complete composite.
If you export an Aldus FreeHand 3.0 illustration that contains a DCS image, we recommend that you include image data in the exported file. For more information about including image information, see Chapter 8 of the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual.”
• Aldus FreeHand’s magic stretch feature (Option + drag to resize) improves the printed quality of 1-bit (black-and-white) bitmaps (such as TIFF images) and images that contain repeating patterns, as described in Chapter 8 of the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual.” Although you can magic-stretch grayscale and other color images, magic stretch has no effect on the quality of these images.
• Although you can apply a process color to 1-bit (black-and-white) images, keep in mind that, like “Patterned” fills, 1-bit images are resolution dependent and may not print correctly if reproduced with process colors. If possible, use a grayscale image or spot color instead of a process color.
• You can improve the quality of traced bitmaps if you:
- isolate the area of an image you want to trace. The smaller the area you trace, the faster Aldus FreeHand traces the image.
- increase the contrast of grayscale images using options in the “Image” dialog box. (For example, posterize the image.) See Chapter 8 for information about working with scanned graphics.
- scan an image that you plan to trace at a high resolution. Keep in mind, however, that tracing a high-resolution image requires much more memory than tracing a low-resolution image: in some cases, Aldus FreeHand may run out of memory while tracing. In addition, it may be more difficult to work with a very accurate tracing than with a less accurate tracing because of the greater number of points on the former. You may need to experiment to determine the resolution that works best for you. Keep in mind that you can adjust the sensitivity of the tracing tool by double-clicking on the tracing tool icon in the toolbox to open the “Trace” dialog box.
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5. WORKING WITH TEXT
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• To select text that’s joined to a path, you must click on the path (not on the text block) with the pointer tool. If the path is not visible, click in the area where the path would appear if it were visible. You can also switch to keyline view, so that the path is visible, and then click on it to select it. If you switch back to “Preview” view, the text joined to a path remains selected. (Choose “Preview” from the View menu to switch between and “Preview” and keyline view.)
• When you resize grouped text, work in “Preview” view to get the most accurate results. Resizing grouped text in keyline view may give you slightly inaccurate sizes.
• If you scale text joined to a path that has a fill and stroke attribute applied to it, the width of the stroke may expand when you print.
• When you rotate text blocks and then join them to paths, the on-screen appearance may not match the printed appearance exactly. You should join text to a path and then rotate the text and path to get accurate results.
• As mentioned in “Converting text characters to composite paths” in Chapter 4 of the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual,” you must have printer fonts installed on your system in order to convert the fonts to paths. If you don’t use a font-management utility (such as Suitcase or Font/DA Juggler), the printer fonts must be loose (not contained within a folder) in your System folder.
• When you convert text to paths using the “Convert to paths” command on the Type menu, the converted text adopts the current default fill and line attributes (including color, line dash, and any other specified attributes).
• Text in an Aldus FreeHand 2.0 illustration may wrap differently when you open the file in Aldus FreeHand 3.0. This may be caused by changes in font metrics or by the improved way Aldus FreeHand 3.0 measures and wraps text.
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6. IMPORTING and EXPORTING
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• You can prevent Aldus FreeHand from splitting paths when you print an illustration or export it as an EPS file: Choose “Print…” from the File menu, click “Change…,” and uncheck “Split complex paths.” Alternatively, you can hold down the Option + Command keys as you click the “OK” button in the printing or “Export” dialog box. (Hold the keys down until printing or exporting is underway.) We strongly recommend that you disable path splitting for illustrations that contain color TIFF, PICT, or DCS images pasted inside other elements. For more information on printing TIFF, PICT, or DCS images pasted inside other elements, see the “Printing” section later in this file. For information about path splitting, see Chapter 9 in the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual” and “Option to simplify information sent to the printer” in the “Guide to Installation, System 7.0 Compatibility, and Feature Updates.”
• If you plan to export an Aldus FreeHand illustration containing TIFF images and then place the resulting EPS file back into Aldus FreeHand to be printed, be sure to check the “Include TIFF Images” option in the “Export” dialog box before exporting. If the image data is not included in the file, the image will not print when you place it in another Aldus FreeHand illustration. In general, placing Aldus FreeHand EPS files back into Aldus FreeHand is not recommended, as it may result in larger than necessary files and long print times. (To combine elements from different Aldus FreeHand illustrations, we recommend that you copy and paste the elements from one illustration to the other.)
If, on the other hand, you plan to print the illustration or the original EPS file using an OPI-compatible prepress system, do NOT check the “Include TIFF Images” option before exporting. Including the TIFF image is unnecessary because Aldus FreeHand includes OPI comments in the EPS file, including information about linking to the original TIFF image.
• As discussed in Chapter 9 of the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual,” fonts used in an EPS graphic must be present on your printer, or they must be available in your System folder, from which Aldus FreeHand automatically downloads them at print time. In rare situations, Aldus FreeHand may not automatically download the fonts needed to successfully print an EPS file. In particular, EPS files created by PageMaker can be subject to this problem. You can solve the problem either by downloading the necessary fonts to your printer prior to printing, or by including a nonprinting text string in your Aldus FreeHand illustration (such as a string of white text or a text string hidden behind other elements on the page) that includes all of the fonts used in the illustration.
• Although some software programs can save illustrations in Adobe Illustrator 1.1 format, keep in mind that not all features available in other software programs are supported by the Illustrator 1.1 format. For example, composite paths, tiled fills, layers, and text on a path are not preserved when a graphic is exported in Illustrator 1.1 format. In addition, if you save an Adobe Illustrator 88 or 3.0 illustration containing EPS graphics in Adobe Illustrator 1.1 format, and then place that file in Aldus FreeHand, the EPS graphic will display but it won’t print. (Adobe Illustrator 1.1 format does not support the placement of EPS graphics.) If you encounter this problem, try importing the original EPS file and the Illustrator 1.1 file into Aldus FreeHand separately.
• When exporting an illustration, choose the format in the “Export” dialog box before typing a name for the file. If you type a name for the file and then choose the format, as directed in Chapter 8 of the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual,” the file name reverts to the name of the illustration followed by the extension “.eps” or, if the illustration is untitled, “Untitled.eps”
• EPS files produced in other software programs, including previous versions of Aldus FreeHand, will not take advantage of Aldus FreeHand’s autospread feature. EPS files that are produced in Aldus FreeHand 3.0 and re-imported will take advantage of autospread (unless you disable it), with the exception of the sections of the EPS graphic that abut the edge of the EPS bounding box and any objects that are manually trapped (spread or choked) in the EPS file. The amount of the autospread is determined by the current “Spread size” setting in the “Print options” dialog box (not by the EPS graphic itself.)
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7. PRINTING
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• When you print or export a file, any TIFF, PICT, or DCS image pasted inside an element is sent to the printer or included in the export file (if “Include TIFF Images” is checked) as many times as the path is split. This may significantly increase printing time or the size of the exported file, especially if the illustration contains color images pasted inside elements. We strongly recommend that you disable path splitting when exporting or printing any illustration that contains color TIFF images pasted inside elements. (Choose “Print…” from the File menu, click “Change…,” and the uncheck “Split complex paths.”) Although the chances of receiving a PostScript “Limitcheck” error increase when path splitting is disabled, the ramifications of receiving an error are less significant than the potential costs associated with a substantial increase in printing time. If a “Limitcheck” error occurs, setting the flatness to a value greater than 3 may correct the situation.
• High-end systems limit the number of colors or gray levels per document to 256. To accommodate the limit, you may need to control the number of steps Aldus FreeHand generates in graduated fills. To do this, create a “UserPrep” file containing the following line:
/maxsteps 100 def
The number you use in this line is the number of steps you want to limit Aldus FreeHand to using. (In the equation, 100 is the number of steps used in a 100% gradient. A 50% gradient will use 50% as many steps.) For information on creating a “UserPrep” file, see the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual.”
• If you calibrate your imagesetter using the procedure described in Appendix D of the “Aldus FreeHand 3.0 User Manual,” keep in mind that the imagesetter must be set in the device-positive mode for correct software positive/software negative calibration. If you wish to calibrate for both hardware positive and hardware negative modes, create a second copy of the PDX file, rename it, and calibrate your imagesetter using the two different PDX files—one for device positive and the other for device negative.
• Before opening an Aldus FreeHand 2.0 file in Aldus FreeHand 3.0, open the file in Aldus FreeHand 2.0 and note settings in the printing and the “Print options” dialog boxes. You may need to reapply some options in Aldus FreeHand 3.0, including “Printer,” “Page size,” and other options in the “Print options” dialog box. Unless you have copied the APD specified in your Aldus FreeHand 2.0 illustration into the folder with your PPDs, Aldus FreeHand 3.0 will use the default options available for the default printer, “Apple 380.” Small differences between values in APDs and PPDs may result in slightly different output sizes when you print a file from FreeHand 2.0 and from FreeHand 3.0 using the “Fit on paper” option.
Note that we strongly recommend that you use PPDs to print. For more information, see “Installing Aldus FreeHand” earlier in this file.
• Some versions of the Linotronic RIP 30 may take an extremely long time to print (or even fail to print) illustrations containing numerous fills with low screen rulings and/or certain fills and lines available by selecting the “Patterned” option for fills or lines in the “Type options” dialog box. The status indicator on the RIP 30 may provide a clue; if your illustration does not print and the RIP 30 display panel indicates that the RIP is adding to its screen cache, contact Linotronic for a fix for this problem.
• While printing illustrations that contain TIFF or PICT images, the flow of image data can be interrupted by the standard electronic interaction between a hard disk and an external Bernoulli drive. (Signs of these interruptions include shifted rows of pixels in images and PS errors.) If your hardware configuration includes a Bernoulli hard disk, we strongly recommend that you disconnect it from your hard disk before printing illustrations that include TIFF or PICT image files.
• When creating spot colors, be sure to give them names that can be distinguished from process color names in the “Print options” dialog box ink list.
• If your laser printer was initialized with LaserPrep version 5.2 and your computer uses LaserPrep 6.0.1, you may experience printing problems. When you try to print from Aldus FreeHand 3.0, you will receive a standard error message stating that the printer was initialized with an incompatible version of LaserPrep. You can click the “OK” button in that message box to reinitialize the printer, or you can click “Cancel” to cancel the print job. We recommend that you click “Cancel” and then restart the printer before printing. If you click “OK,” you run the risk of crashing.
• Aldus FreeHand cannot print legal size documents on an NEC Silentwriter, an HP Laserjet III, or other printers when the second paper tray or bin is designated for printing legal size paper. To print on legal size paper, you need to designate your main tray or bin for legal paper.
• Aldus FreeHand provides a built-in PPD (“Apple380.PPD”) that lets you print on a variety of printers. You must actually install “Apple380.PPD,” however, to use the “Legal” paper size. If you don’t install “Apple380.PPD,” you can open the “Print options” dialog box and choose “Legal” from the “Paper size” pop-up menu, but the “Paper size” option will change to “Letter” when you close the dialog box and click “Print.”
• If you use a spot color in an Aldus FreeHand 3.0 or 3.1 EPS file and then import the EPS file into Quark Xpress, you must redefine the spot color in Quark Xpress if you want to print a spot color separation. In addition, Quark Xpress may not print an imported Aldus FreeHand EPS graphic correctly that contains a black ink. To fix this problem, you must define a new process color in the Aldus FreeHand illustration before you export the file in EPS format. (If you’ve already exported the EPS file, you can open the original file, define the process color, and export the EPS file again.) You do not need to use the process color in the Aldus FreeHand file. Quark Xpress will then print the black ink properly.
