FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Is EazyDraw Retro just and "old version"

No: EazyDraw Retro is 32 bit, but still has nearly all the latest features found in the 64 bit version. Support is still provided with regular updates and bug fixes. See development history below for an understanding of the level of support provided.

Can I run both versions of EazyDraw on one machine?

Yes: They can co-exist, preferences are shared so no need to do two "configurations". You need to enter the license code twice, but that is the only extra step needed. Most users will "zip" the version not in use, to take control away from OS X and explicitly determine which version will launch. Experienced users can even have both versions running at the same time.

I purchased EazyDraw from the App Store, can I open AppleWorks drawings?

No: You need EazyDraw Retro and a version 8 free market license code. This was noted prominently on the App Store description, but is easy to miss. Contact EazyDraw support for personalized assistance.

Will the App Store version open my AppleWorks drawings?

NO: You will need EazyDraw Retro (version number: 10.0.2) to open AppleWorks drawings. This version operates with the Free Market (non-AppStore) license that you purchase from the EazyDraw web site. The most economical route is to get the 9 month license for $20, convert your drawings the return to using your App Store version of EazyDraw.

Does EazyDraw Retro have all the new Mojave features like Dark Theme, Revisions, and Duplicate?

NO: EazyDraw retro sticks to the " OS X 10.6 " document model, so you still use Save As to manually create a revision sequence and originals are not modified unless you explicitly save.

Version History

10.0.2 May, 11 2022

Fixed problem parsing some MacDrawPro drawings.

10.0.1 November, 28 2021

EazyDraw Retro version 10 provides updated license capability. Previous versions of EazyDraw Retro could not accept nine month license codes after December 1, 2021. This version has extend the date horizon for 9 month license code.

8.0.3 January, 19 2016

Corrected issue on About EazyDraw, the report of license status. This now reports correctly, previously for about 1 month of a 9 month license the report would falsely indicate license was out of date.

This version of EazyDraw Retro has a newer QuickLook driver which will support the current drawing format for the main release of EazyDraw. The previous problem in this area: If a user installed and used both EazyDraw Retro and the main release of EazyDraw, and if the Operating System choose EazyDraw Retro to supply the QuickLook Driver, then drawings saved by the main release of EazyDraw would not display QuickLook or CoverFlow in the Finder. This was a 50/50 proposition concerning which driver (the one from Retro or the one from the main release) would be in use after a reboot of OS X. Therefore systems with both versions installed would have QuickLook work about half the time with changes possible with each reboot. With the new driver, then users on very old systems and possibly on PowerPC's might see problems with this version and they should use 8.0.1 .

8.0.1 October, 20 2015

El Capitan release.

This version is not code-signed. Apple has now updated some versions of OS X with a version 2 of the code-signing format. If EazyDraw Retro is code signed with either the old or the new standard about half of users will not be able to run. We could provide 2 versions, but it is probably less confusing to try to release with no code-sign resource in the Application. This means that on the newer versions of OS X the System Preference on General Preferences will need to "Allow Apps from Anywhere to Run".

Fixed rare problem with Welded Group. If the group contained graphics with different Fill and Style settings, then it was possible that a copy and paste could result in a change to the overall appearance of the group graphic. The could possible change with a copy and paste or saving a drawing and re-opening the drawing. This is all fixed now.

Fixed rare problem with Angle Dimension. During creation and adjustment a crash was possible with certain geometry configurations. All fixed now.

Corrected rare problem with imported images, images that have Metadata associated with the image and that have dots per inch at other than 72 DPI. In some cases these images would change position when the drawing was closed and re-opened. The images would move and remain as placed while editing the drawing but would revert to their initial position when the drawing was closed the re-opened. This is now fixed.

Fixed possible crash. Related to use of Tape Tool, closing an un-edited drawing, then continuing work on another drawing. Problem not present on OS X 10.8, but found to be present on OS X 10.9, versions 10.9.1 and 10.9.2. Situation is now stable and correct for all versions of OS X.

Fixed problem ungrouping PDF. Rare configuration of the PDF content could cause some text to render as white text on white background, instead of black text. This is parsing error is now fixed.

Corrected rare problem with Copy operation. If a graphic contained text but if that contained text was empty and actually did not have any text characters, then the copy operation would fail to place any content on the system Clipboard. EazyDraw has blocks to prevent a drawing from having empty text boxes, unless they are linked to a chain of text boxes that has non-zero text content. One user somehow created a drawing with this situation, so now EazyDraw has internal protection against this situation.

Corrected problem snapping to an invisible line (a line with no stroke) that was exactly horizontal or vertical. The infinitely thin aspect prevented proper snap testing. This now snaps properly.

6.0.5 August, 10 2014

NOTE: On system settings, Security and Privacy you must change your setting to: "Allow apps download from: Mac App Store and identified developers" . You will see this near the bottom of the General tab. The choice will likely be grayed out (disabled), click the locked icon, lower left and enter your OS X system password - then you may change the setting if needed.

Updated the Code Signature for use on OS X 10.9.5 and newer. The correction is also needed for some systems running OS X 10.9. on new computers purchased after July 1, 2014 . Apple made a change to the Gate Keeper that block Apps compiled with older technology. This version of EazyDraw Retro is now compliant with OS X requirements. Older versions of EazyDraw Retro will not launch on OS X 10.9.5 (and some systems running 10.9.4) or newer versions of the operating system.

Fixed possible crash. Related to use of Tape Tool, closing an un-edited drawing, then continuing work on another drawing. Problem not present on OS X 10.8, but found to be present on OS X 10.9, versions 10.9.1 and 10.9.2. Situation is now stable and correct for all versions of OS X.

Fixed problem ungrouping PDF. Rare configuration of the PDF content could cause some text to render as white text on white background, instead of black text. This is parsing error is now fixed.

Corrected rare problem with Copy operation. If a graphic contained text but if that contained text was empty and actually did not have any text characters, then the copy operation would fail to place any content on the system Clipboard. EazyDraw has blocks to prevent a drawing from having empty text boxes, unless they are linked to a chain of text boxes that has non-zero text content. One user somehow created a drawing with this situation, so now EazyDraw has internal protection against this situation.

Corrected problem snapping to an invisible line (a line with no stroke) that was exactly horizontal or vertical. The infinitely thin aspect prevented proper snap testing. This now snaps properly.

Important Note SVG: Beginning with this release, SVG no longer receives bug fixes and improvements. If full SVG support is needed please locate a machine that runs OS X 10.8 or newer and use the lead version of EazyDraw for SVG support. This is most important for SVG import.

6.0.3 December, 17 2013

Corrected behavior when resizing a group, when interactively decreasing the width or height to a very minimum and negative values. The Group would jitter and make small jumps at the near zero and negative heights. The jitter and jump behavior is fixed and the group will smoothly decrease to the minimum allowed height or width, if the interactive motion continues to the negative height or width the group flips and smoothly adjusts to increasing width or height.

Corrected possible problem selecting graphics that were near a Text Bubble graphic. The Text Bubble was interfering with a favored selection over other graphics in the area of the text bubble pointer. Selection is now as expected, respecting clicks close to the text bubble outline but not responding to the full bounding box of the Text Bubble. This applied to all 4 forms of text bubbles.

Made a few improvements to the marque selection algorithms.

Fixed potential problem with export PNG and TIFF images with white or colored background with DPI greater than 72 and not an even interval of 72 (not 144, or 288). Then it was possible to get a narrow faint bar of gray at the right or bottom edge of the image. This is fixed, no more gray lines at the edges.

Corrected rare problem with Dimension, related to rounding. For drawings to scale, with large number (> 10) of inches, with Dimension precision set to one decimal point, with format set to Feet and Inches. In some cases the display value of the Dimension, on the drawing, would show an extra 0.1 inches. This is now fixed.

Improved appearance of Graphic Details inspector when not using Attributes Bar. There were slight appearance issues near the top of the inspectors panels, especially for small drawing window sizes.

6.0.1 October, 9 2013

EazyDraw Retro with support for Mavericks - OS X version 10.9.

New this version: EazyDraw Retro is Code Signed. You may run it on OS X 10.8 and 10.9 with System Security Preferences set to "Mac App Store and Identified Developers".

New this version: EazyDraw Retro only reads the original (2001) drawing file format. This version of EazyDraw Retro will not crash when trying to open a drawing with the newer EazyDraw 5 or EazyDraw 6 file format. Earlier versions would crash, now a proper error message is presented with no harm to EazyDraw Retro.

Fixed this version: Support for PowerPC (PPC, the older Motorola cpus) has been restored, PPC and Intel CPUs are supported.

Note that all of your PICT content should be converted to PDF. PICT is no longer supported on todays systems, you can use EazyDraw retro to read PICT images. But these should be converted to a present day graphic format as soon as possible.

5.0.7 April, 3 2013

Corrected issues related to AppleWorks drawings and ClarisDraw drawings created with Japanese text. The EazyDraw convrsion now supports Osaka Font and others. Now these conversions are correctly translated to proper OS X unicode text encodeings with good typesetting reconstruction.

5.0.5 August, 21 2012

Corrected a major problem for Mountain Lion users. Mountain Lion has a somewhat rare but severe bug displaying pattern fill colors. In certain situations Mountain Lion will hang EazyDraw while the operating system is displaying the pattern fill. If the hang occurs it may keep EazyDraw from launching, opening a drawing, or printing (depending on when this random issue triggers). This version of EazyDraw has replaced all Pattern Drawing algorithms with internal code to avoid the new system problem. It would be advised to avoid using Pattern Colors as a color choice (from the system color picker), this should be avoided in EazyDraw and other Apps on Mountain Lion. It is not necessary to use these colors with EazyDraw - apply the Pattern fill from the Pattern palette instead of applying the pattern color from the system color picker. Patterns now display in an improved fashion, they no longer are pinned to to the bottom left of the drawing window, now patterns are synced to the actual graphic. The Pattern panel has two new parameters that provide a means to tweak the display start of the pattern tiling (phase). The improvement insures that the pattern seen on a display will be the same in all respects when printed. Patterns now zoom in a normal fashion for detailed inspection, keep in mind patterns are pixel based and should be viewed at zoom 100 percent to see actual presentation or printed appearance.

5.0.3 July, 30 2012

Support for Mountain Lion (OS X version 10.8).

Improvements for Claris Draw import.

4.0.3 April, 26 2012

Corrected possible PDF ungroup issues with content containing series of cropped images, in rare cases only the first image would be imported and accepted. Issue is now correct.

Corrected rare possible crash opening a library with math functions Absolute Sine and Absolute Sine Cubed. And possible problems with these functions for Periods less than 0.5 with certain non-zero phase settings. All is correct now.

Corrected problem using Color Modification (on Layers Drawer) with PDF image. The image would flip upside-down when first imported. The issue would not present if the drawing was saved then reopened. All is now correct.

Corrected rare problem forming a new group. If the group contained more than one Free Transform graphic, and an Image that had been recently moved, then the new group might possibly position the image (or images) incorrectly. All is now correct. This problem has been present for approximately 24 months in late version 3 and all of version 4.

Corrected possible problem with Ungroup PDF, when using AutoCombine Text. In some cases the conversion would abort and not complete, EazyDraw would not crash but the conversion would fail. This is now corrected. A note on AutoCombine Text, one use for this setting are PDF Drawings authored by Canvas where the Canvas setting "exact text placement" is used.

Corrected problem entering numeric values for certain wall line graphics. The position, length and angle values would display properly but entries were not accepted. All is correct now.

Corrected issue with Advanced Duplicate, for Polar and Linear duplication that used rotation. In a few cases the rotated graphics would present their rotation but could revert to their pre-rotation state with future editing actions, and copies to the clipboard would receive a non- or partial- rotated version of the graphic. All is correct now.

Corrected bug in selection logic for Groups. Previously if a group contained at least one graphic with Fill, the whole area of the group would respond to a click for select. That behavior was incorrect, clicking in an open region with no graphic content should not select the group. All is correct now. A few other tweaks were applied to selection logic and several speed optimizations were added for the selecting logic.

Corrected bug in Distribute Edges panel. The numeric values were inconsistent (appeared random). The proper units (the drawing units) were not interpreted on input. All is now correct and the panel was enhanced to always show drawing units (for clarity and confirmation) and to allow setting of text field width in accordance with numeric display settings from Graphic Details.

Corrected problem with colors on PDF ungroup. Related primarily to PDF drawings from Canvas. In some cases RGB colors that had full saturation of a component were incorrectly interpreted resulting incorrect colors. All is correct now.

Improved PDF ungroup to include Text Rendering Mode. Most significantly invisible text is now ignored. Now Outline and Stroked text are properly added to the EazyDraw drawing.

Corrected issue with failure to select and manipulate the gradient control handle. This could happen in certain situations for paths that had a graphic but were not fully closed.

Center Marks were not drawn or managed for graphics nested in a group. They now draw properly even when the graphic is in a group. You can now set or clear all the center marks for a group from Graphic Details.

Corrected problem with Page number text stamps (Page Number of Number) and (Page Number) not updating when moved to a different page. Previously these text stamps would not update if nested in a group. They would work properly as independent graphics. They now work as expected and any movement will cause an immediate update - even during the move process.

Corrected SVG parsing issue with very long polyline curves. it was possible that a zero-glictch would be inserted. Situation parsed correctly now.

Corrected rare case of "white dots" that could appear on an RGM image when converted to CMYK. This would only happen with larger images.

Corrected possible problem with Graphic Details display of values. It was possible to set a very wide display width, then resize to a smaller Graphic Details view width and then cut off the display values. Now this mis-match in settings is detected, and adjusted insuring that display values are always shown.

Corrected a problem with the stepper control on Graphic Details for Bezier curves, values for the inspecting index could be entered but the stepper would not advance the index. This is now working properly again.

INTERESTING: Dashed Line Bug. We found a core bug in Apple's graphic display technology. Certain (very specific) combinations of line angle and dash patterns will cause a line to fail to draw completely. This was demonstrated on two different drawing programs on Snow Leopard and Lion. The bug has been reported to Apple (no response) and EazyDraw has been patched to avoid the situation.

Corrected situations where Fit Text Box would fail to properly resize the text box.

Corrected bug with DXF import, problem related to MText strings longer than 255 characters. Problem is now corrected, DXF import of content with long attributed (varying font and style across the string) strings is now imported correctly. NOTE: for best DXF import EazyDraw 4.3.0 or newer should be used.

4.0.2 December, 12 2011

Corrected problem importing AppleWorks drawings with nested groups. In some cases, rectangles and ovals would become shifted after the drawing was saved as an EazyDraw drawing and re-opened. Now this situation is handled correctly. This was a problem introduced with EazyDraw Retro version 4.

Corrected issue with user library palettes. When switching away from EazyDraw to another App, then back to EazyDraw any open library palettes would be shown behind all other palettes and drawing windows. Now their display order is maintained as it was before the App switches.

Added the ability to name, save, and load a ruler style. Corrected a few issues with the default Ruler Style and reloading an altered ruler style, these were introduced with the 64 bit transition to EazyDraw version 4. Now all aspects work as they should. Note on defaults and behavior: Ruler Style is saved with a drawing, therefore any changes made to the ruler style (color perhaps) will restore when the drawing is saved and re-opened. But if a drawing has never had a change to the Ruler Style, that drawing will open with the Default ruler style. Therefore a change to the Default ruler style will often be applied to an existing drawing when opened, not just to new blank drawings. But it is not always the case that the Default Ruler Style will apply to an existing drawing when opened.

Corrected AppleWorks conversion problem with lines that have arrows at both ends. These now work properly.

Improved the Area Report found on Graphic Details. It now reports the area when multiple graphics are selected. Previously area was reported only for individual graphics that had area. If any selected graphic does not have an area, then no value is reported for the multiple selection.

4.0.1 October 25, 2011

Routine Update: version 4.0.0.

Corrects problem reading some EazyDraw Binary format drawings on OS X 10.7 (Lion).

Few minor corrections reading AppleWorks Drawings. Some drawings with Chinese font will now import correctly, this issue is not fully resolved with this release.

Correct issues with ungrouping of nested Pivot graphics. The problem also caused Flip transforms to work incorrectly. The behavior of Flip of nested Pivots was changed to provide more logical implementation of nested pivots, previously the pivot point was held constant with the referencing pivot (parent pivot), now the pivot remains stationary with respect to the referenced element (child of a nested pivot).

4.0.0 July 19, 2011

Initial release of EazyDraw Retro.

This is a "compatibility" version. Those running OS X version 10.6.0 and newer should use a superseding EazyDraw versions (4.1.x or 4.2.x at the time of this writing).

This version of EazyDraw is provided primarily for those that need to import classic mac drawings (see list above) on OS X 10.7 (Lion). It is advised that this version be use just for the primary import and conversion of the drawings. After the imported, cleaned up and saved in the EazyDraw native format, switch to the newer technology EazyDraw version.

This version of EazyDraw requires a version 4 license. Version 3 license codes are accepted and provide full operation for a grace period that ends Jan. 1 2013.