How to make a hybrid CD which will open on both PC and Macintosh computers

    When you burn a CD from a Windows-based computer which will be used on another Windows-based computer, you can add autorun.inf and launch.exc files to cause the CD to automatically open on a selected page (file). You usually open on an index.htm file. However, when you put that same CD in a Macintosh computer, it cannot read the autorun.inf file and will open a file list instead. (That is, it will open a list of all the files in the folder. The list will be in alpha-numeric order which usually puts files with number names in numerical order followed by word titles in alphabetical order.)

    (If you need copies of autorun.inf and launch.exc files, click on the link.)

    However, you cannot simply add a Mac OS-X equivalent of the autorun.inf and launch.exc files on the CD so that a Macintosh would open the CD on the selected file. (Mac OS-X is the operating system used for Macintosh.) As of this posting (8/2/06), there is no software available which you could add to your Windows-based CD in order to tell a Macintosh computer to open on a specified file.

Our Tentative (and not very sophisticated) Solution

    For this illustration, we will assume that your home page file is index.html and your autorun.inf opens on index.html. When your CD is put into a Windows-based PC, the home page will automatically open. However, when this same CD is put into a Macintosh, the user will only see a file list when the CD opens. Nonetheless, if the correct file is opened, the CD will operate normally. Therefore, you want to put the file which should be opened first at the head of the list where it will be easily seen. Secondly, you want to tell the Mac user that it is the file which should be opened. This is what you can do:

1. Copy and Paste your index.html (or whatever is the name of the file you want to use) into the folder used for your CD. (That is, both the original and the copy are now in the same folder.) The new file will probably copy as Copy of index.html.
2. Rename the file Copy of index.html to something like 0PEN MAC.html. (Keep the file name short.)
3. Add alpha-numeric characters if necessary in order to place this 0PEN MAC.html file first in the list because there are probably many other files which would come in alpha-numerical order before OPEN MAC.html. Add alpha-numeric characters which will place it first in the list. You will probably use either 0 (zero) or A, depending on the other file names in the folder. If you had no file names beginning with numbers, and no other file names with more than a single letter a as the first two letters, you could title your new file AA 0PEN MAC.html to place it at the top of the list. However, in order to do both, you could write 0PEN MAC.html using O(zero)PEN MAC.html.
4. When Macintosh users open your CD, they will see a file list with OPEN MAC.html (or AA OPEN MAC.html) at the top of the list. Presumably, they will click on this folder which will open your home page and all its links.
5. After link pages are opened from the home page, when Macintosh users click the back arrow, it will take them back to OPEN MAC.html. If they click a home page link anywhere on the CD, it will take them to the original index.html page because that is the address used for the home page on your html pages. Since both home pages are identical, either OPEN MAC.html or index.html will satisfactorily navigate links on the CD.
6. However, if you make any alterations on your index.html page, you will need to copy and paste another index.html page and make a new OPEN MAC.html page.