Mac-using attorneys who work with RealLegal’s .ptx files will find the following article by Todd Vachon very helpful:
Recently,
while doing some research on producing video depositions, I came across
RealLegal‘s .ptx files. Those in the legal profession will recognize
this format is the method not a few court reporters use to deliver
deposition transcripts. This can present a challenge for Mac users
because the .ptx file is a proprietary encrypted file, only readable
with RealLegal’s software which is not well supported for the Mac.
It’s true that RealLegal offers free readers for both the PC and
Mac, but if you look at the fine print you’ll realize that the Mac
version is written to run in ‘classic’ mode. Classic mode is not
supported under OS 10.5 ‘Leopard’ or on any Intel Mac. In other words,
RealLegal isn’t really interested in continuing to support the Mac
market. If you have a PowerPC Mac running OSX.4 or prior, this solution
may work for you for now. If not, read on…
Since I was interested in producing synchronized video depositions,
I needed to find a way to easily access these files. Here are some of
my initial findings:
For producing synchronized video depositions, Clarity Legal Software
makes DepoSmart which it claims can read RealLegal e-Transcript XML
files. I haven’t tested it out yet, but it sounds promising. Clarity
also produces free cross platform viewer software. All Clarity’s is
available for either platform (and really supported by the look of it).
What if you just want to be able to read .ptx files on you mac? I use Codeweaver’s Crossover software
to run a PC only program that I need to use. Crossover is a commercial
application of the opensource Wine project, which is dedicated to
running Windows application on Intel chips without the need for Windows. If you have an Intel Mac this is your ticket. Crossover is available as a free 30-day trial version.
I found that the PC version of RealLegal’s free reader ran
perfectly well in Crossover. If you want to give Crossover a try,
here’s some details on how I set it up that should save you some time:
After installing Crossover for Mac and running it, click on the ‘manage
bottles’ link and create a new Windows 2000 ‘bottle’. When Crossover is
done setting up the bottle, click on the applications button and then
the install software button. Choose the ‘install unsupported software’
option – don’t panic, this just means it’s not on the limited list of
tested software – not surprising since there isn’t a big market for it
outside of the legal profession. Navigate to the envsetup.exe file you
downloaded from the RealLegal site
and choose it. Follow the installation directions. When it’s done you
should get a finder window with the viewer’s program icon. Open the
viewer application and use it like you would any other app.
What if you want to convert your transcript into a universal format
that anyone can read, like a potential expert witness? Select the
entire transcript (I found I needed to click and drag the whole
document to do this – see what I mean about junky proprietary
software?). Remember that it thinks it is running under windows, so the
copy command is Control-C instead of the Mac’s Command-C (Pasting on
the Mac side is still Command-V). Next I opened Pages [Apple’s word
processor] and pasted the text in. From there choose File>Print and
choose the ‘Save as PDF’ option and you’ll have a cross-platform
shareable PDF. [Note: other word processors, such as Word for Mac or
even TextEdit may work for this, but I haven’t tested them.]
If you own Adobe Acrobat Professional, you can take this a step
further. [Note: I found I couldn’t paste a transcript of 20 or more
pages directly into a blank Acrobat PDF. My test file was 50 pages
long. So I used Pages to create the initial PDF file, then opened it in
Acrobat to index it.] Acrobat will allow you to index the file so you
can search it for any word and quickly locate each usage. Open your PDf
in Acrobat and choose Advanced>Document Processing>Manage
Embedded Index. Click the ‘Embed Index’ button and Acrobat will index
the entire document. The nice thing about this is that the index can be
searched by anyone with the latest free Adobe Acrobat reader software.
Adobe by the way has a very good track record at maintaining cross
platform compatibility.
I hope this helps you if you’ve found yourself in the same boat. I’d
love to hear some feedback on these workarounds or other ideas if you
have them. Let me know of your experience with this issue.
Source: "Working with RealLegal .ptx Files on the Mac" by Todd Vachon, published at his Todd Vachon Photography blog.
Clarity Legal’s software can only read the XML version of the files, which means you’ll still need to use the Windows E-Transcript reader to convert PTX files first.
Another way to create a PDF file from the Real Legal e-transcript viewer without copying and pasting is to use the “Print” command for the open transcript and check the “save to file” checkbox. This will save it as a PostScript file (saved wherever you select with the name you give it) that will convert and open as a PDF when you double click it. (Note: I cannot open it from with the application in either Preview or Adobe Acrobat, but double clicking works fine.) Then use “Save As” to save it as a PDF.
Thanks for the mention. I helped someone today follow your steps and got E-Transcript Viewer working, sounds like they had to drop the .ptx file onto the viewer to get it to open. Thanks again.
You could also use doPDF which installs a Virtual PDF printer into the windows virtual machine. Then from Real Legal’s software, you could hit print, choose to print to doPDF and you now have a PDF. Saves you a step.
Thank you! Your time-saving instructions for downloading the Crossover software and installing the E-Transcript Viewer were perfect! It works like a charm! Now I’m able to work at home on my MacBook Pro instead of driving into the office to read transcipts. Thanks again!
Your suggestion was invaluable! I used the Crossover software and now E-Transcript is running perfectly on my MacBook. Thank you so much!!!
What if you’re running 10.5 on a PowerPC Mac? Out of luck?
Another solution:
Use Bootcamp/VMware/Parallels to open the ptx file with Real Legal’s reader and save the ptx as an rtf file.
Use Acrobat Pro in Mac to open the rtf file and save as a pdf. You lose all the formatting if you try to save as a txt file.
Hopefully, Real Legal will ultimately make a Mac reader.
Users can convert RealLegal files to text format at Clarity Legal. Here is the link:
http://www.claritylegalsoftware.com/ptxconversion.php
You can convert them for free, and they are emailed to you within a few seconds.
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