LekoGirl Posted January 14, 2008 Share Posted January 14, 2008 Hi everyone! I have a question about the .mcd file type. I created a file on my mac (it's new, and I've had no issues) in VW 12 (student ed). It was then edited on a PC (Vista). Now I have my USB drive plugged in again, and while the name still shows the extension as .mcd, the file can not open in VectorWorks for some unknown reason. The icon is a grey rectangle with lime green text reading "exec" in the upper left corner. Is there any way to make this file open and editable in VectorWorks on my mac? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you so much! Quote Link to comment
Gerrit Posted January 14, 2008 Share Posted January 14, 2008 Are you trying to double-click it ? If so, first open VW and then try to grab the file through File > Open? Maybe dragging the file from the USB stick on to your mac HD helps as well. Quote Link to comment
jan15 Posted January 14, 2008 Share Posted January 14, 2008 In Windows, the filename extension tells the operating system what program to use when you double-click on a file. You could rename a text file "notes.mcd" and Windows would tell VW to try to open it. MacOS uses a different method, and ignores the extension. Quote Link to comment
JBender Posted January 16, 2008 Share Posted January 16, 2008 (edited) We run into this often enough. We work in a mixed OS office, mostly macs a couple PC's. It comes down to how the OS's identify what program to open the file with when you double click it. A work around is to open the file from within Vectorworks. A PC uses the file extension to identify which program to open it with. A mac uses a code inside the file which tells the OS which pogram to use. When a file is transferred to a PC file system, that special code is stripped away, and the mac doesn't know what program to open it with, and figures it is some system file. A Mac can also use the file extension to decide - if that mac code isn't there. For vectorworks, that doesn't work, however. My mac gurus tell me that this is by fault of vectorworks not having the proper coding... You can find free programs to put the right mac codes back into the file if you do some web searching. This can also happen when emailing files because the file goes across PC based systems. Edited January 16, 2008 by Jhaceun Quote Link to comment
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