There appears to be a system bug under the old Mac OS X 10.3 ("Panther") operating system, which can cause problems when attempting to export graphics from CrystalMaker versions 7.1 or later, to formats such as TIFF or PNG. The symptons are that exported graphics include bonds, but not atoms.

This problem does not occur when exporting files in JPEG, SGI, BMP, PICT, TGA or JP2 formats. It also does not occur in the current version of the operating system, Mac OS X 10.4, "Tiger".

High-resolution pixel export is generally very reliable from CrystalMaker 7 - but it does require some help from the operating system, in particular, from QuickTime, which provides image import/export handling. The fact that export works flawlessly for one format - JPEG - but not for another - TIFF - and that all formats work flawlessly on the newer version of the operating system, strongly suggests that this is a system problem, which Apple probably didn't get around to resolving.

Our best advice is to always keep your operating system up-to-date! Mac OS X is a fast-moving target, and it really is worthwhile upgrading.

If you are stuck with an old operating system, then here are some workarounds:

either:

Copy Your Graphics into Preview:

1. Use the Edit > Copy Graphics command to copy your graphic as a pixel image to the clipboard, at your chosen size and resolution.
2. Launch Preview.app (most probably located in your Applications folder).
3. In Preview.app, choose the File > New from Clipboard command. Your copied graphics are now displayed in this application.
4. Save your image in your chosen format.

or:

Export as a JPEG and convert to a TIFF:

1. Simply export your image as a high-resolution JPEG file, then open it in Preview.app.
2. Choose Preview's File > Export command and specify the TIFF format for output. (CrystalMaker saves JPEG files at the highest quality, so this method works well.)

Registered users can download and install the latest versions of CrystalMaker by visiting the Updates page of this site. To download system updates, use the Software Update command, located on the Apple menu.