Christiaan Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 My boss came across an interesting symbiosis between VectorWorks and Mail (Apple's email application) today (maybe it works with others as well, don't know): Select any part of a drawing in VectorWorks and then copy and paste into a Mail message. It creates a PDF on the fly. This could be extremely useful when you just want to someone on the other end of a discussion to see what you're talking about. Quote Link to comment
russh Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 Doesn't work in Windoze. Quote Link to comment
panthony Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 Christiaan, On a PC all you need to do is select Alt-Print Screen and the contents of the active window are copied to the clipboard which you can then paste to and email window in Outlook. The screen window image can be zoomed in on any particular detail and the image will be copied at the current screen resolution as a bmp. If you like to have the entire contents of the screen copied and pasted selet Ctl-Print Screen. I've been using this for years in windows as a way just as you have found to send a quick email with a small Kb footprint size wise. Good tip for the macites out there. Pete A Quote Link to comment
Petri Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 Anything you can do, I can do better: to copy a selected area to the Clipboard on the Mac press Command-Shift-Control-4. Works with all programs both ways. OK - maybe you can't paste a picture to some programs. Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted November 2, 2007 Author Share Posted November 2, 2007 On a PC all you need to do is select Alt-Print Screen and the contents of the active window are copied to the clipboard which you can then paste to and email window in Outlook. Except copying and pasting directly from VectorWorks into Mail creates a PDF, so it's a vector file which can be printed at its correct scale and without losing any resolution. Quote Link to comment
Petri Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 Does it? (I don't use Mail.) But aren't OS PDFs of raster type? Quote Link to comment
Ozzie Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 Maybe but in VW select small area and CtrlC - Word 2007 CtrlV - there it is. Again - big file - 75 townhouses fresh from AutoCAK - whole thing into Word - do not have email on this machine print to A4 beautiful Dunno about accurate scaling though Thanks though never knew about this Quote Link to comment
Petri Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 Maybe but in VW select small area and CtrlC - Word 2007 CtrlV - there it is. No, it's not. You have the selected objects, not a selected area. Quote Link to comment
Ozzie Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 The Clip tool though helps Quote Link to comment
Petri Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 It does, indeed: with it you can ruin your VW-file in an instant! Quote Link to comment
Ozzie Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 So Christiaan said This could be extremely useful when you just want to someone on the other end of a discussion to see what you're talking about. So in the middle of a drawing you would just go oh quick send of the email. Nah - Save first and use that file Don't you reckon Quote Link to comment
Petri Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 This must be one of the more difficult things for a Windows-user to understand: capturing a rectangular area on the Clipboard is a piece of cake on the Mac and has been for years. It is unfortunate that neither Christiaan or his boss have not known about basic OS features; that does not make Windows any better, though. Yes, I reckon. You don't seem to. Quote Link to comment
Ozzie Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 Of course not - really I think Windows is a piece of ???? But my Commodore 64 was way cool I have been threatening for awhile to make the leap into the great unknown Can you run CAK 2006 on a Mac Quote Link to comment
frv Posted November 2, 2007 Share Posted November 2, 2007 its even easier now, on a mac, command P, PDF, mail PDF and a second or so later Apple mail opens with the on screen sheet or designlayer, your drawing in pdf ready to send when you have given an address. It can hardly go any faster. I can send a drawing in less then 1,5 seconds, Leopard, VW 13 and a Macpro. Just found out today you can print as "mail PDF".....lol. Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted November 3, 2007 Author Share Posted November 3, 2007 So in the middle of a drawing you would just go oh quick send of the email. Nah - Save first and use that file Don't you reckon No, not always. Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted November 3, 2007 Author Share Posted November 3, 2007 It is unfortunate that neither Christiaan or his boss have not known about basic OS features It's a disgrace really, but then I'm always coming across such things on a Mac I didn't know existed. What I really like about it is that it creates a PDF rather than an image file. It's always nice to think that someone actually thought about these things in the first place. Quote Link to comment
islandmon Posted November 3, 2007 Share Posted November 3, 2007 OSX implementation of PDF is simply brilliant ... there's no other way to describe it. Quote Link to comment
Petri Posted November 3, 2007 Share Posted November 3, 2007 For the benefit of the poor OS-challenged VW-users: Mac OS X uses PDF as the default printing mechanism, PNG as the default image file. One can create a (raster) PDF from any application by just saying "Print". "Screen prints" are PNGs, which - IMHO - is a pretty good format. Quote Link to comment
Tobias Posted November 4, 2007 Share Posted November 4, 2007 Thanks for the tip. Just used it, quick and painless. Quote Link to comment
Richard T Posted November 4, 2007 Share Posted November 4, 2007 For us poor people out there who can't capture direct to pdf, well now you can if you wish. It's called FastStone Capture, it's free, and it integrates with Windows just about as nicely as you could wish. Aside from the regular copy to clipboard, it allows you to capture the screen direct to a file, including PNG and PDF formats. Quote Link to comment
panthony Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 I don't know if anyone knows this but Adobe has a product called distiller that allows print to PDF directly from applications which can then be attached to an email. The only thing is that it takes a few more steps than the macites have but I use it all the time. Pete A Quote Link to comment
Ozzie Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 I use Fastsone Capture too - great little tool and Cute Pdf is ok too. Another great little tool for resizing images is PicSizer. And whilst on it Office 2007 has a downloadable Office Add In - Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS. I run Vista Business on my Laptop but do not have Vectorworks installed on it - will have to install it and see if there are any differences between it and XP Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted November 5, 2007 Author Share Posted November 5, 2007 Hey come on, you Windows guys are making my tip smell. Move along please. Quote Link to comment
Ozzie Posted November 5, 2007 Share Posted November 5, 2007 I know I am only new here but I did not think this was just a Mac only forum. In a previous post I wrote Of course not - really I think Windows is a piece of ???? I have been threatening for awhile to make the leap into the great unknown Can you run CAK 2006 on a Mac? Very obviously the Pdf function on a Mac is great and I see Windows users have only shared how we can have similar tools. It depends too on how you work - I work with two machines running - my Desktop just for VW really and my Laptop emails. Internet, Word docs, bookeeping etc and of course CAK. So copying and pasting from VW to an email just does not work but Faststone makes it a breeze especially because my computers are networked. Quote Link to comment
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