Do you have AutoCAD installed on your Mac?
Entourage will display the Preview image of the drawing, which it will
probably convert to GIF. Word will look for an application capable of
displaying an AutoCAD drawing.
Since you can't have AutoCAD on the Mac, you need to install one of the
equivalent CAD programs, or export the picture from AutoCAD in a format that
Mac Word can display.
Another alternative, if you have one of the new Intel Macs, is of course to
install Windows, Word 2003 and AutoCAD. That's a very expensive option
unless you already own licences for those programs.
Generally, we have had very poor results with vector drawing formats in Word
Mac. You really need EPS format: try it. Make sure you use a
black-and-white TIFF preview picture with the exported drawing.
It may display badly in Word but it should print perfectly. However, few
users have managed to get that working properly, due to variations in the
interpretation of EPS amongst other programs.
Word will import and convert WMF format, but WMF is often not powerful
enough to express an AutoCAD drawing unless you simplify it. EMF can do it,
but Word can't import EMF.
That leaves you going for a bitmap format. Choose GIF or PNG (GIF if you're
working in black and white, PNG if you need colour). A bitmap needs to be
very high resolution to express an AutoCAD drawing. AutoCAD is very fond of
very fine lines that will vanish entirely unless you set a resolution above
900 dpi. Ideally, make a copy in AutoCAD, remove the invisible lines, then
set the line weight of the remainder to something reasonable: say half a
point.
Sorry: There are some things Mac Word isn't terribly good at...
Cheers
I am new to MAC. I always have problems trying to read drawings which
are in specifications when using Word. On my PC when viewing specs I
can see CAD files no problem. When using MAC all I can see is the
dimensions of my drawings but no drawing. If I click on the drawing it
says "WORD CANNOT LOCATE THE SERVER APPLICATION FOR AUTOCAD.DRAWING.15
OBJECTS".
However if I copy and insert into Entourage I can see it no problem (so
I know I have the software on my pc, but when using Word I have
problems....). Help ! Thanks
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John McGhie <
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Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410
