🚀 go-pugleaf

I missed the discussion, but I was told that there has been some interest
in printing GCG graphics in this group recently.  I personally have tried
pass-through printing and PostScript files with no success at all.  What
has worked very well for me is the WP Corp. presentation graphics
programs DrawPerfect and its successor, Presentations.  Even WordPerfect
itself will work to some extent.

The WP programs all have the ability to import HP plotter files.  What
you need to do is configure GCG to print to a HP plotter (I use the
default HP7550), and have the output directed to a file instead of a
port.

To do this, type "hpgl" at the Vax prompt.  You will get a list of
plotters to choose from.  Select one.  Then you will be asked what port
is the plotter connected to.  Type a name for the file you want GCG to
print to.  Then you will be asked for a page size and you will be ready
to go.

Note:  I am a little hazy on the above procedure, and I am not currently
on our GCG machines so I can't verify it at this moment.  But it should
be fairly accurate.  A long time ago I added several commands to our
login.com file to make the GCG graphic mode changes much quicker and
easier.  The relevant line for the above mode is:

	$       hp :=='HPGL' HP7550 hpout.hpgl a4

All I have to do is type "hp" at the Vax prompt and the system is set
to print a HP7550 plotter file called "hpout.hpgl" using A4 page size.

From here all you have to do is download the plotter file to your PC and
fire up WordPerfect or one of the drawing programs.  To bring up the
graphic in WP, first type <alt-f9>, then <f>, then <c>, then <f>.  This
should get you to the "select graphic file" choice.  Type the name (and
path, if necessary) of your downloaded plotter file and you get the
message "loading plotter file . . .".  Once the image is loaded, you can
resize and reposition the image to your desire.  Loading them into the
drawing programs is even easier, just retrieve them like any other file.
Do a "list files", it may be necessary to tell it to list "*.*" and to
view the appropriate directory - the select and retrieve the file.

The problem with using WordPerfect is that often the translation is not
quite perfect (groan!  Not intentional :-) and there are often a few
artifact lines that need to be removed to make a good image.  Also WP
cannot change the fonts or line weights, colors, etc. at all.

The two WP drawing programs work very well with these plotter files, and
give you nearly total control of all aspects of the figure.  You can
change line weights, colors, positions.  You can do limited grouping and
ungrouping of objects - probably one the WPCorp products' weakest points is
their lame grouping abilities, but they do well enough for my purposes.

Best of all, is the ability of both programs to manipulate the fonts and
dress up their appearence - the default plotter fonts look a little weak
on a laser printer and don't match the text in accompanying articles, etc.
very well.  The newer program, Presentations, will even use Type 1 and
Bitstream Speedo fonts in addition to the ones that it comes with.  If you
want to use the Type 1 or Bitstream fonts, however, you must print using
Presentations or WordPerfect 6, as DrawPerfect, WP 5.0 and WP 5.1 only
recognize the bundled WP brand fonts.

The last caveat is that sometimes the translation of the image sometimes
gets screwed up or some very complex images may have so many artifact lines
that removing them all (without removing important lines) is a royal pain.
However, this has only happened to me only once in the several dozen
graphics I have imported this way.  So, I imagine problems with this
method would be rare.

This is not really an endorsement of WP products as the greatest software
on Earth, but rather an endorsement of their ability to handle this
particular task (which they do rather well).  Actually WP 5.1 is my 2nd
favorite word processor and Presentations is my 2nd favorite graphics
program (I don't care for WP 6 that much).  I *much* prefer the Write and
Draw programs in GeoWorks Ensemble for the vast majority of my work.

If anyone has more detailed questions, feel free to ask.  Email might be
better, since I don't always get to read this group before some articles
expire on me.

-- 
..............................................................................
                                                      David Northcliffe
                                                      dln4300@rigel.tamu.edu
                                                      dln4300@tamuts.tamu.edu