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From: dgold@apple.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: MacDraw file format?
Message-ID: <400@apple.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Jan-87 13:48:24 EST
Article-I.D.: apple.400
Posted: Fri Jan 23 13:48:24 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Jan-87 06:40:16 EST
References: <105800001@datacube> <835@brand.UUCP>
Reply-To: dgold@apple.UUCP (David Goldsmith)
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA
Lines: 33

In article <835@brand.UUCP> weber@brand.UUCP (Allan G. Weber) writes:
>...  Sometime back I wrote a program called
>"drawimp" that translates a MacDraw picture saved in MacDraw format
>into Impress commands for printing on an Imagen laser printer.  In the
>process of writing the program I had to decipher much of the MacDraw
>internal file format.
It's really not a good idea to depend on the format of MacDraw format files.
Apple has stated in the past that this format is subject to change in the
future.  The PICT format option in MacDraw is there precisely to satisfy the
needs of people for transferring information out.

For those not familiar with the PICT format, it's described in Tech Note
#27.  Basically, it consists of a 512 byte header, followed by a regular
QuickDraw picture.  This picture can be interpreted by either reading it
into a handle and playing it back (you can use the QD bottleneck procs to
get the data coming out of the picture and convert it to another format),
or by setting the QD bottleneck which gets picture bytes and pulling it
out of the file directly (if the picture is too big to fit in memory all
at once).

By using MacDraw PICT format and the QuickDraw bottleneck procs, you can
insulate yourself from changes in both the MacDraw file format and the format
of a QuickDraw picture.


-- 
David Goldsmith
Apple Computer, Inc.
MacApp Group

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