I create large (>5000 images) databases of plant photographs, to be used across Mac and PC. Of necessity this means checking the "Store only a reference to the file" option box.

Can the box's default be set so it is NORMALLY checked? It's not a trivial problem, because a .jpg file accidentally imported directly into Mac FM is decompressed and stored as a 2 Mb implant, rather than 100-200K.

Proofreading 5000 records is a major job that involves putting the referenced graphics "out of sight" and testing whether they are still shown in the file.

>to be used across Mac and PC. Of necessity this

means checking the "Store only a reference to the file" option box.

Why "of necessity"? Thre are numerous x-plat graphic foramts.

Old Advance Man

Thanks for the quick reply.

I struggled with this a long time, got it to work reliably with jpeg and indirect referencing, but it requires close attention.

PICT and JPEG were both described as cross-platform, but I couldn't get either to work with compressed images, starting from the Mac platform:

* Compressed PICT images store great and displayed well, but could not be read by my Virtual PC (if I remember rightly, straight PICT images were OK);

* Compressed JPEG images were decompressed before storage, blowing space constraints out of reach (also making display very slow).

Can you suggest a better format, or a way of setting that check box?

Wasatch

Actually, PICT files weren't originally cross-platform; they were the MacOS (far superior) answer to the BMP format.

& a MSG for OAM -- I think Wasatch means that, "of necessity" the pics need to be linked rather than imported, file size being the crucial factor here.

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I have never been able to set the "Store only a link..." box to default as checked -- and I have three clients who would LOVE to be able to do that, since they import 000's of pics as well. Maybe in version 6 ... ?