I am a new user to Illustrator and just installed CS3 on my G4 laptop. I have a beautiful Cinema Display but cannot seem to work on illustrator documents spanning across both of them. The dual monitor mirror setup is unacceptable of course. If somebody can point out the obvious to me I would greatly appreciate it.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Dual Spanning from Laptop
- Thread starter sarge
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I think we need more information... I don't really understand what you want to accomplish.
You have a Powerbook (as opposed to an iBook) G4 hooked up to a 23" ACD via DVI, right? And in the display preferences, you have unchecked the mirroring box, so that you have two discrete displays showing different things, right? You've assigned the menubar to just one of them (no way around this), and then the other one has been placed in the virtual space above, below, or to the right / left of the main screen? With me so far?
Now, what do you want to do? Do you want the single window that has the Illustrator doc in it to be stretched across both displays? This should be readily possible -- just start resizing it and then drag into the other window. Or do you want the palettes to be visible on both windows at the same time? That's not possible, AFAIK.
You have a Powerbook (as opposed to an iBook) G4 hooked up to a 23" ACD via DVI, right? And in the display preferences, you have unchecked the mirroring box, so that you have two discrete displays showing different things, right? You've assigned the menubar to just one of them (no way around this), and then the other one has been placed in the virtual space above, below, or to the right / left of the main screen? With me so far?
Now, what do you want to do? Do you want the single window that has the Illustrator doc in it to be stretched across both displays? This should be readily possible -- just start resizing it and then drag into the other window. Or do you want the palettes to be visible on both windows at the same time? That's not possible, AFAIK.
I think I know what you mean. The Ibook G4 doesn't do screen spanning as standard. I hope it's OK to mention it here but the answer is "screen spanning doctor" which you can google for. This lets you extend your desktop over two monitors. Or I think lets you close the lid without losing the external monitor. I think in theory it may invalidate any warranty left on your G4 but I've been running it without ANY problem on two Ibooks. Go for it. Is that what you wanted?
But I thought that the ACDs did not support analog signals? How did you get from VGA on an iBook to an ACD?
As far as SSD, in case that is what you're talking about, I don't think there's anything wrong with mentioning it here. It doesn't violate any laws or any license agreement you had with Apple. It's quite safe; I use it on both my iBook G4 and my iMac G5.
Here is the link to SSD.
As far as SSD, in case that is what you're talking about, I don't think there's anything wrong with mentioning it here. It doesn't violate any laws or any license agreement you had with Apple. It's quite safe; I use it on both my iBook G4 and my iMac G5.
Here is the link to SSD.
OK fine, I just never could work out why Ibooks didn't span and Powerbooks did. Doesn't the ACD work just by using the DVI to VGA adaptor. But that's not my area of expertise....
It was basically Apple crippling features. On the iBook you might argue that it didn't dissipate heat well enough to push the video card that hard (although it really seems to handle dual screen spanning just fine -- I spent an entire semester teaching a 3 hour class with my iBook hooked up to a projector in spanned mode, so I could use the presenter view in Powerpoint). Especially, then, you look at the iMac G5, which had a fairly powerful 128MB video card that could easily handle the external display, and it makes even less sense. And then notably they ultimately changed this and stopped crippling this feature.
BTW, I think the ACD only accepts the DVI-D segment of the signal, and not the DVI-A segment, so it wouldn't work, but I may be wrong. Moot unless the original poster comes back.
