Help Making a CD with folders that can be seen by Macintosh

LuxLuthor · Feb 11, 2010

I have a bunch of PDF files that I am making in Black & White, and another set for color printing.

I have only used a PC (currently using WinXP Pro). If I burn the CD with two folders (i.e. label them as BLACKWH & another as COLOR) to keep files separated, will people with Macintosh be able to see each folder, and be able to open them to get to the respective PDF files?

carrot · Feb 11, 2010

You should be fine. Macs have been PC-compatible for years. You do need to be careful what software you use because some seem to use a strange proprietary format. I use InfraRecorder and it is free, easy to use, and works great.

LuxLuthor · Feb 11, 2010

carrot said:
You should be fine. Macs have been PC-compatible for years. You do need to be careful what software you use because some seem to use a strange proprietary format. I use InfraRecorder and it is free, easy to use, and works great.

I use Nero. I was since reading this writeup which says you need to use the ISO9660 format, and only use file/folder names of 8 characters (+ 3 for file extension name). Maybe that is outdated? That's a pretty old format, but Nero can do it.

LukeA · Feb 11, 2010

About 10 years out-of-date.

LuxLuthor · Feb 11, 2010

Do you know if there is a character or file length limit for Mac?

Like can I use a folder name Black & White with those spaces and the & sign?

Thanks in advance.

Apollo Cree · Feb 11, 2010

Not Mac specific, but computability will be improved by

1) Finalizing the disks if necessary.

2) Using CD-R instead of CD-RW.

Whatever you use, try it out if possible. CD-R's sometimes won't work between two particular drives and/or different brands of disks even if they "should" work.

Strangely enough, more expensive name brand CD's aren't necessarily better than no name brands.

Radiophile · Feb 12, 2010

CD itself is a format, it's not platform specific. If the folder's name isn't compatable with an OS for some reason, you'll still see the folder, only the displayed name will be abbreviated or interpreted by the OS. Even DOS 3 does this - don't ask me how I know. OSX should be able to deal with long file and folder names. It's been a while since I've used OSX, but I don't remember that being a problem.

If you want to be safe, why not use Mono and Color as the folder names?

LuxLuthor · Feb 12, 2010

Radiophile said:
CD itself is a format, it's not platform specific. If the folder's name isn't compatable with an OS for some reason, you'll still see the folder, only the displayed name will be abbreviated or interpreted by the OS. Even DOS 3 does this - don't ask me how I know. OSX should be able to deal with long file and folder names. It's been a while since I've used OSX, but I don't remember that being a problem.

If you want to be safe, why not use Mono and Color as the folder names?

Yeah, it would work to use those two names. Thanks.

ElectronGuru · Feb 13, 2010

The oldest versions of MS-DOS supported 8 characters (plus extensions). The oldest version of Mac supported 32 characters. Modern OSs are 255 characters, including Vista and OS X.

Keep it under 9 and you're good for anything 30+ years old.

LuxLuthor · Feb 13, 2010

I decided to do just that. It's amazing how much time I spent reading and searching with google to find this simple answer, and nothing definitive except that 10 year old link I posted above.

Help Making a CD with folders that can be seen by Macintosh

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