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This question may sound silly, but it actually affects some things I've been doing with Mac computers for 15 years.
For that long, I've been using MacEnvelope software for printing out envelopes and sheets of labels for (snail) mailing lists. To this day, I still use an iMac G4 1.25 GHz (Fall, 2003 vintage) to run MacEnvelope Professional 1.1.1 (1995 vintage) in MacOS 9.2 "Classic" mode to print out specific lists of labels. MacEnvelope allows me to do many things that newer envelope and label printing apps do not. For one thing, if I'm printing out on sheets of Avery 5160 labels (30-up), MacEnvelope allows me to print more than one list on a page by specifying which label on the page I want to start printing from. So, if one list is two-and-a-half pages long, and a second list is another two-and-a-half pages long, I can print both lists out on only five pages of labels. That saves two pages.
MacEnvelope also allows me to "print range", which means I can take a given list, screen out the ones I don't want to print, and only every unscreened entry. Very handy. These kinds of features allow me to really cut down on waste of both labels and toner/ink.
As my iMac is getting older, I've been wondering what my options are. I really like MacEnvelope, and it still works well. But running Classic mode bars me from ever upgrading the iMac to anything higher than MacOS 10.4.11, and the company who made MacEnvelope, Synex of Brooklyn, NY, went under years ago. Dymo LabelWriters and Dymo software are great, but when you're printing out labels by the sheet that gets ridiculously time-consuming and expensive.
If I wanted to run MacEnvelope in Classic mode, I'd have to either keep maintaining the old G4 iMac or buy a somewhat newer G5 iMac. (The old G4 is beginning to seem pretty slow, even with its 300 GB internal hard drive only two-thirds full.) Buying a G5 iMac does have some allure (although I don't know where to find a deal on one) becuase then I could continue to run Classic mode and it would be faster. But G5 iMacs aren't getting any younger, and the software it would run would essentially remain frozen in time.
I'm aware that outside of MacEnvelope, I almost never run Classic mode for anything else. So, what are my other options? I see in the old MacEnvelope manual that there's an export option for FileMaker Pro. (I assume Synex meant a 1990s vintage of FMP.) Could FMP or Bento do the same things that MacEnvelope does for me? If so, I could eventually replace the G4 iMac with a new Intel-based desktop machine with all the current software. (I also use the iMac as a kind of home office file server to centralize all home-based clerical duties.)
Is there some other kind of labeling software I may have overlooked? And could there be a way to transfer my MacEnvelope mailing lists over to newer software?
What other options are there?
--WA
Walt Atwood, moderator and Apple Ambassador Allegheny Region Macintosh Users Group Warren, PA and Jamestown, NY phone: (814) 726 - 2774
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