How To's

Allocate more memory to an Application

Applications (programs) such as AppleWorks, Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator and Photoshop take up a certain amount of RAM memory while you are using them. At times, the documents you are working with may exceed the amount of RAM the application thinks it can use. To resolve this situation, you must tell the application it can take use more RAM. Here's how:

Locate the Application icon on the hard drive. You cannot give more memory to an alias or a folder so make sure you have selected the actual Application icon.
Click the icon once
Go to the File Menu->Get Info->Memory (see picture below)

Once the memory control panel is open, change the preferred size to a higher number. If it is Netscape or Explorer, set it to at least 30,000 (30M). For other applications adjust it a couple of megs higher than what it is. Photoshop is an exception, it needs to be approximatly 3 times the size of the largest document - i.e. if the picture you want to work with it 20M, then set Photoshop's preferred size to 60M.

Close the Get Info window. Once the Preferred Size it set, it will remain that way until you change it or reinstall the application.

Troubleshooting

If there is no Memory option when you go to the File Menu->Get Info, you have not selected the application icon - you have probably selected an alias or folder.

If you cannot change the Preferred Size, the application is currently in use. Close the Get Info Window, then go to the Application Menu (in the upper right hand corner of the screen) select the application, go to the file menu and select Quit. You can go to step #1 above.