Posted on March 17, 2003
Revised on February 10, 2005
Whether we like it or not, OS X is here to stay. So, this page is for
those of us who have made the switch and want to fine-tune the system,
so that it does what we want it to do. As always, if you have any suggestions
you'd like to share with everyone, please feel free to let
me know.
Hardware
Without a doubt, using the fastest Mac you can afford will make a big
difference. A dual-processor G4 (1.2 GHz or faster) is strongly recommended
for production work, with LOTS of RAM (one Gig or more).
Software
Naturally, you should upgrade all your software to their OS X versions.
Currently, we have no choice but to use Classic for the following important
pre-press applications: QuarkXpress, Acrobat Distiller (Update
(Feb. 10, 05): Distiller now works fine in OS X), Adobe Streamline,
and Fontographer.
Fonts
Font management is actually not that bad in OS X. I experimented with
Font Reserve,
Suitcase,
and FontAgent,
and I settled on Suitcase because it's simple and easy to use, and comes
bundled with Font Doctor to analyze and fix your font library. The biggest
problem with Font Reserve is its font database which frequently gets corrupted.
Adobe Type Manager Deluxe will be sadly missed (this excellent product
is no longer being supported by Adobe).
The thing to keep in mind here is that you shouldn't store your fonts
in OS X's font folders. This may be OK for normal users, but pre-press
users often have hundreds or thousands of fonts which can eat up RAM if
they're all kept in the system's font folders. Instead, organize your
fonts into a separate folder and place it in your hard drive's main directory
or anywhere you like except in OS X's font folders. (Although FontAgent
is a horrible font manager, its real strength lies in fixing and organizing
fonts into a clean library. Font Doctor also has this feature.)
OS X comes bundled with several fonts that may cause problems in a pre-press
workflow. In particular, Times and Futura. If you have PostScript versions
of these fonts, the system's dfont versions may conflict. Since PostScript
fonts are preferred, you should remove the dfont versions. Remember to
look both in your main "library" folder (in your hard drive's
main directory) as well as the system's library (inside the "system"
folder in your main directory). You will need to log in as root in order
to make changes to the system.
General performance
Adjust the keyboard's "key repeat rate" and "delay
until repeat" sliders to the highest value.
Adjust the mouse's tracking and scrolling speed to the fastest setting.
If you're fond of keyboard shortcuts and using the mouse a little
as possible, then this option is for you: Turn on full keyboard access.
You can access the dock and all menu items directly from the keyboard.
You can cut down the amount of time it takes for a disk image to mount
on your desktop by almost half by turning off verification in Disk Copy's
preferences.
Keep your frequently used OS X apps open even when you're not using
them. As long as you have lots of RAM, this will cut down on the chance
of getting the dreaded bouncing icon of death in the dock.
Set your dock to auto-hide. If your dock is always visible, some applications
will shrink their windows to accommodate the dock, thereby taking away
valuable screen real estate. Also, having the dock visible in some Classic
applications, such as QuarkXpress, may sometimes cause problems as OS
X draws the dock on top of Classic's layer (the most common results
are: The dock slows down, and Classic has trouble re-drawing any areas
under the dock) (Update (Feb. 10, 05): The Dock redraw
problem has been fixed in newer versions of OS X).
Finder performance
Turn off all the columns in view options for all
Finder windows. Not only does this allow you to work with smaller windows,
but it means the system has to do less work (for example, calculating
sizes). After that, you can turn back on whatever columns you want selectively
for only the windows you need – the Finder will remember your
settings for those windows.
Keep aliases to frequently used servers in one place (perhaps in your
favourites, or in a folder in your dock) and add all passwords to mounted
servers to your keychain. The next time you mount a server, you don't
need to go through the "connect to server" dialog, and the
server will mount on your desktop without asking for a password.
Finder enhancements
Use Onyx
(freeware) to pin your dock to the bottom left, and place all your frequently
used applications in the dock. This fixes one problem with the dock:
Moving icons. If your dock is in the middle, every time a new app is
launched, the dock will expand in both directions, so when you reach
for an icon in the dock, it won't be where it used to be. Pinning the
dock to the left means that your permanent icons will always appear
in the same place. You have to pin the dock to the left side because
OS X puts all new icons to the right of your permanent icons.
If you hate the dock, use FruitMenu
(shareware) to bring back OS 9's fully customizable Apple Menu, or use
an alternate dock such as DragThing
(shareware).
Use a hot key utility such as Youpi Key (freeware)Butler
to launch your frequently used applications from your keyboard rather
than the dock. You can also use the same keys to switch to the app if
it's already open. This is much faster than using the mouse to access
the dock.
Use Labels
X (shareware) to bring back the ability to label and colour folders.
(Update (Feb. 10, 05): Labels are back in newer versions
of OS X.)
Use Print
Window (freeware) to bring back the ability to print Finder windows.
Open the AppleScript folder in your Applications folder, and drag
the folder called "Script Menu.menu" into your menu (next
to the date and time and sound icons). You now have access to some useful,
time-saving applescripts directly from this menu, such as batch file
naming. If you already have many pre-press scripts in your workflow,
you can easilly add them to this menu.