Saturday, March 1, 2008

4D Embroidery Software on a Mac

We bought a new MacBook before I went to New Zealand in September last year. The justification was to make it easy to connect to wireless hot spots to access the Internet. It had proved too difficult to set up my PC laptop for wireless. Once we got back the MacBook was rather on the shelf.

However it has an Intel duo core processor which means it can run both Mac and Windows programs. Fine. But you have to decide how you are going to do this. There are various programs, some free and some expensive. I asked a question on an Internet mailing list and got a heap of replies from people who are using Macs to run the 4D embroidery program.

As a result we installed Parallels and I then installed the 4D Embroidery Pro programs. Success. Everything works fine, except 4D Sketch which requires a graphics tablet. The tablet that came with the 3D Sketch program only has a Windows driver. I did a lot of googling and couldn't even find the model for the tablet on the Wacom pages, so I emailed customer service and got a really prompt reply (Well done, Wacom!)

I downloaded the suggested driver but couldn't get the tablet to work on either the Mac or Windows side. Our own computer guru thought that the problem could be that the tablet just wasn't designed to work with Macs. Maybe a new tablet that WAS? I rang the major Apple reseller and the guy there was gloomy about the prospect of it all coming together.

Today I went to another, closer retailer and bought a new graphics pad. I was assured that if I couldn't get it to work I could take it back.

It has taken about three hours in all, and quite a bit of a work around, but now the tablet works with the program. I have written myself notes so I can replicate the accomplishment!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

I am so glad I found your info about 4D and your Mac ! I just bought a Husqvarna Designer SE and 4D Embroidery Extra. I was sick thinking I couldn't use it with my 6 month old Macbook ! After one whole day just about getting the stupid Vista on our pc ready to except the softwear ....I almost thru in the towel many times....I am still not sure it will work on the vista pc when I put the firewall, antivirus and other safety stuff I had to turn off........Any help you have to offer would be sooooooo appreciated ! Thanks so much,
Betsy

hemmymission said...

Hi there, I read your blogs on a regular basis. Reading this post reminds me of my previous room mate! He always kept chatting about this. Thanks for sharing.
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