The following instructions are for old Mac® processors which are compatible with floppy disks. Modern Mac® processors are not compatible with JC formatted floppy disks.  However, if you are using a modern Mac® and need to export as an .EP file, this should work.  We recommend testing with a small section of cloth first.

If you are considering upgrading your Mac® computers and are concerned about the compatibility with your looms, you may wish to research the possibility of upgrading your loom to a USB fed Mac®hine, as opposed to a floppy disk fed Mac®hine.

When your Jacquard weave is ready to send to the loom, select Jacquard Loom Setup from the Weave Menu. The following sheet will open. 

The Loom Setup window controls the layout of the design and the selvedge when it is exported to a Bonas Loom:

• Number of Hooks - the number of hooks on the loom.
• Cast Out - hooks which can be specified in or out.
• Out Hooks - I represents IN and O represents OUT. These do not exist as far as the rest of the setup is concerned. Cast Out is specified using the same format as for the warp and weft plans. The unused hooks have a weave assigned to them in the same way that layers in the design have weaves assigned to them.
• Hook Assignments - starting from hook 1, this plan is used to determine the function of ‘in’ hooks:
• F means the hook is free, and is left unlifted.
• S is allocated to the selvedge weave.
• D is used for the design (which comes from the Jacquard layer).
• W is a weft selector (these can be assigned to many different functions which are specific to each loom, such as weft colours, cramming functions, fringing and so on).

The Hook Assignments are padded with enough free hooks to fill up the rest of the Loom.

• Electronic functions - Bonas provide 32 positions for each pick in the design for additional functions such as weft selection. When using this section, the allocation of the first 32 hooks are transferred from the Hook Assignments to the Electronic functions.
• Selvedge - the weave structure to be used on the selvedge.
• Weft Selectors - the weave structure is specified for each weft number. The weft number selects a pick of the weave, and each end of the weave is placed into a weft slot in the loom output. Switch off the Weft Selectors if you need to use the original weft selector patterns.

Enter the information needed in each of the fields and click OK.

Exporting to a document or a Bonas .EP file

A completed design can be output to either a document or an .EP file.

Export to Document

From the Weave Menu, select Jacquard Export to Document… and enter the number of picks in the design.

This can be used to experiment with different loom setups or to check the design before sending to the loom. A new layout is created containing the design along with the other data which would be sent to the loom (including the selvedge information and weft selector allocations).

Export to .EP

It is important to note that some loom technology far outdates modern Apple®technology.  From our experience, exporting .ep files to a floppy disk requires Mac®OS 10.16, and AVA 3.9. Both platforms are now unsupported, but the options remain in the software to aid those customers exporting to old looms.

1. Select Export to .EP from the Weave Menu.
2. Save the ep file with an appropriate name to a relevant folder. The file name should be composed of letters and numbers only, no more than 8 characters long and should end with the letters ‘.EP’.

If your loom requires the file on disk, insert an MS DOS format disk. (Use Access PC software or similar to load on to the Mac® if necesary). If the disk is not in MS DOS format, the Bonas loom will not be able to read it.

Converting the file for use with Staubli

If you need to output your file to a Staubli jacquard loom, the AVA Staubli Convertor program can be used. 

Simply launch the Staubli convertor and open your .ep file. Enter the required information in the window that opens and insert the requested number of floppy disks.  Click on Write Disk and it will convert the file automatically.