I recently set-up some new iMacs, the 21.5in, 3Ghz ones running 10.6.2. All seems to be going well. However, I soon discovered a number of major problems with third party software after the iMac’s were given out the test group of users. The problems listed below have resulted in delaying the roll out of 25 new iMacs.

Quark Xpress 7 crashes when printing with 10.6 and is generally unstable. Quark doesn’t like printing documents using the binary data format. If prefers using ASCII. See http://forums.quark.com/t/22523.aspx. The best fix for this problem is to change the picture data option to ASCII. You may get the error message: “Page could contain EPS pictures which include binary data. OK to continue?” but it does work and Quark is more stable. However, Quark still crashes randomly so users need to save their work regularly. Unfortunately, the only real solution available for Quark running on 10.6 is to use Quark 8. See http://forums.quark.com/t/21811.aspx.

Canon has only updated a few of their printer drivers to fully work with 10.6. They have updated all of the PPDs, but these only give limited printing functionally. See http://www.canon.co.uk/Operating_System_Drivers/mac_os_compatibility_office.asp. The older 10.5 compatible drivers will install but they won’t work, an error message occurs “The printer software was installed incorrectly. Please reinstall the printer’s software or contact the manufacturer for assistance.”. Using a PPD will work, but there no secure printing option and limited ability for proper tray selection, double printing etc… Fortunately, I discovered a work around for the fiery RIP enabled devices. EFI have released a printer driver update which modifies the CUPS permissions on Mac OS X 10.6.

Microsoft Powerpoint 2008 with SP2 is unusable on 10.6. Typing and keystrokes lag behind about of 5 seconds before appearing on screen. Moving between slides is very slow and Powerpoint often freezes. There currently isn’t any solution for this problem. I’m hoping that the next Microsoft Office update will fix this, or possibly the new Apple update 10.6.3.