Grants.Gov Now Mac Compatible with Beta Pure-Edge Viewer
Support for Non-Windows Users
Grants.gov, working closely with the grant community, continually seeks to improve the grant application process. To that end, we have been working to identify solutions to provide better cross-platform support for Macintosh, Unix, and Windows users. This currently includes three solutions:
- We are implementing Adobe forms with support for Macintosh, Unix, and Windows with a target of April 2007.
- We have made available a Citrix server to enable Macintosh and Unix users to work with the Windows version of IBM Workplace Forms (PureEdge).
- We are tracking vendor efforts to implement a cross-platform version of the IBM Workplace Forms.
The use of the beta Pure-Edge Viewer is qualified by Grants.Gov as:
The Grants.gov Contact Center is not in a position to support questions specific to the Mac Viewer because this is an IBM product. Software limitations may include:
- Occasional crashes and subsequent loss of any unsaved data
- Inability to submit large applications (greater than 20-40 MB depending on your system and network)
- Inability to run on Intel-based Macs or any Mac OS version prior to 10.4.6
- No support for screen readers for visually impaired users
Please consider these limitations and read the attached release notes carefully before using this software. We will provide additional information on commercial releases of this product as they become available. Currently, we expect the vendor to release a version for Intel-based Macs within the next few months.
Still, the situation is much better today for Mac users using Grants.Gov. The beta Pure-Edge Viewer for the Mac works well according to postings to a listserve we belong to. It will be even better when Grants.Gov completes its conversion to using PDF's in April 2007, a solution it should have considered using in the first place. [Bill Fox]
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