Comments on: Freehand + Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard

By: Pstoren

Pstoren — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:17:53 +0000

It’s really weird. It makes the pdf but it’s blank. Didn’t happen until I put Illustrator on my iMac. I’ll check into the cups-pdf driver and see if that works.

By: vlad

vlad — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 06:38:48 +0000

PS: cups-pdf is a free printer-driver. It might need some tweaking to use easily but is a very practical thing: you can print anything (including websites and any documents) to pdf. It is a practcal way of avoiding the half dozen clicks needed to print to pdf under the Apple engine.

By: vlad

vlad — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 06:34:34 +0000

Pstoren: notthing to do w. AI. Adobe is bad and let’s hope they lose the suit and free the suite, but FreeHand always had some problems with the pdf. You can:
– downgrade to 10.6.4 or earlier, reinstall FH carefully and see if that helps;
– instead of exporting, print to pdf (this uses the Apple’s pdf engine);
– rxport a ps-file and distill it (drop it on Distiller or on Preview to use the original Adobe or the Apple pdf engine respectively);
– if you have complicated postscript in you document simplify it (paths in paths, vectors w. too many points, gradients, transparencies, complex composite paths) and check that the font you use is ok (convert it to paths and see if that alone is what solves it).
– get http://www.print2pdf.com (expensive) or https://bitbucket.org/codepoet/cups-pdf-for-mac-os-x/downloads and print directly to pdf (but preflight the result).

By: Pstoren

Pstoren — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:52:36 +0000

SFanartist –been through that myself. You have to get the patch and if you search Freehand with Snow Leopard you will see the download. Install freehand and don’t open it. Then put that ‘patch’ in the CORRECT library file. I originally put it in the wrong Library file. Once I did that, it opened up. There are some problems with it still – but basically it works.

By: Pstoren

Pstoren — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:47:49 +0000

I went ahead and bought Illustrator. Figured I would have to do it sooner or later and when I installed it on my computer and opened Freehand and tried to create a pdf in Freehand, the files were created but nothing was in them. Anyone have any idea what that is? Wondered what Illustrator did to my Freehand to kill off the pdf possibilities.

By: SFanartist

SFanartist — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:27:54 +0000

Hi all- hate to admit it, but once I got FH running with SL I forgot how to…. and now that I have a new (used) macbook cannot figure out how to install it- since the disks I have go waaayy back and even before Adobe cut us off, the dserial number never worked (I started when it was Aldus….). So- I figured i would go ahead and put FH on the Macbook and put Lion on hold–to wait and see. But for the life of me cannot remember how to do it– I tried putting the files that SEEMED right from the imac onto a thumb drive and then plunking them down in the Macbook- and got the Loibary thing— and (oh yeah, updated it to 10.6.8)– but still no go– yesterday I got the message that Rosetta had to be installed- so went back to the SL disk and installed it–hmm maybe I have the sequence wrong? Any suggestions- been too long… and now adobe really ignores us!

By: Pam Storen

Pam Storen — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:00:19 +0000

I started out on Illustrator a LONG time ago…like 1988 and did not like it and then found Freehand and have used it ever since. I was bummed when the updates stopped. I think it’s so much easier than Illustrator but resorted to buying it just in case. I am guessing I will need to learn it but won’t until absolutely necessary. And I will not be upgrading to Lion. It will kill off my Microsoft office and Freehand without the Rosetta. I will stick with Snow Leopard now that I have that figured out.

I can’t thank everyone for their help on this. I am so relieved that I am back in business!

By: FFHMark

FFHMark — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:55:30 +0000

Good to hear of your success finding your Home directory vs. the OSX directory. Sometimes it is the simplest things but it had me baffled.
-
As one of the Free FreeHand founders, I can say we are totally dedicated to its future so it will play nice on both platforms. Valaa brought us up earlier and we know the urgency with OSX Lion missing Rosetta. The class action against Adobe takes time but it is happening.

By: valaa

valaa — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:15:27 +0000

Just remember you need not resave anything. AI opens FH documents in any format, including eps and of course pdf.

By: Pam Storen

Pam Storen — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 23:30:06 +0000

SUCCESS! I am embarrassed to tell you all that I figured out there were 2 ‘library’ places..one under my name and one on the hard drive. Both had application support..not sure what that was about – but when I finally figured that out, and put the new file in the CORRECT folder, it worked! Can’t thank you all for your help. I will still force myself to learn Illustrator – we will all probably have to sooner or later – but at least all my files aren’t lost. Especially good since I was in the middle of a logo design and 2 invitations that I had just started working on. Whew.