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Why are my Ferret-generated GIF files unreadable?

Question:

I'm running Ferret and everything is working well except when I ask Ferret to produce GIF images according to the command FRAME/FILE=picture.gif.
Ferret creates a GIF file but it's unreadable by any software like Microsoft Photo Editor or XV.

Explanation:

Earlier versions of Ferret (v5.40 and earlier) were unable to produce valid GIF files when the X server being used for display was in TrueColor (24-bit) mode.

Solution:

There are two possible solutions:

• Upgrade to Ferret version 5.51 or later.

or

• Configure the X-server of the node on which Ferret is to be displayed to run in PseudoColor (8-bit) mode. The methods to do this may vary with each operating system and X window implementation.