Re: Page Size of HP-GL Device

[Michael Asten <masten(at)mail.earth.monash.edu.au>]

You dont say whether you are printing via a windows driver or direct in HPGL.
There is a trap for the unwary (ie undocumented feature) if plotting via a windows
driver, in IDL5.2 or above.  I have encountered a similar problem plotting to
A4,A3 printers and to a HP650 plotter (36 inch wide) in idl5.2, via Win95 and
windows driver.
A note posted a  month ago refers.

Before posting this, I have justed sighted DWFs comment.  Seems to tickle a memory
cell that the HP650 plotter measures offsets from (0,0) at page centre, so a
default (0,0) offset would give the problem you mention.  By contrast,  A4 and A3
plotter measure offsets from bottom left.

Regards,
Michael Asten



Michael Lefsky wrote:

> I am trying to plot IDL generated graphs on our 36" wide HP plotter. I set the
> X_size to 91 cm (36") but when the plots come out, the left hand side of the
> graphs start at the middle of the page, and continue off the right hand side
> of the page. Has anyone come across this problem, and hopefully, solved it?
>
> Michael Lefsky

Copied from  19 Nov 99

Osamu Sasaki wrote:

> Hi,
>
> This is a simple printing program.
>
> PRO TEST
>         save = !D.NAME
>         SET_PLOT, 'PRINTER'
>
>         ret = DIALOG_PRINTERSETUP()
>
>         HELP, /DEVICE
>         PLOT, INDGEN(10)
>         DEVICE, /CLOSE_DOCUMENT
>
>         SET_PLOT, save
> END
>
> Run this program on IDL 5.2 (Windows).
> Select PostScript printer(output device),
> A3(media), landscape(orientation) and press OK.
>
> The output is like this.
>
>  +------------+
>  |            |
>  |            |
>  | ######     |
>  | ######     |
>  +------------+
>
> (# is plotted area)
>
> It should be like this.
>
>  +------------+
>  | ########## |
>  | ########## |
>  | ########## |
>  | ########## |
>  +------------+
>
> And it works correctly with other printers (LIPS, ESC/Page, PCL, etc.).
>
> Why only PostScript printers ?
> Is there any way to solve this problem ?
>

Im not a postscript user, but I had a similar offset problem on direct
printing to windows printers when upgrading from idl5.1 (gave correct
positioning) to idl5.2 (did not give correct positioning).

It turns out that idl 5.2 introduced a default clip area on the page.  I
recall a comment from RSI that the change also related to postscript plots,
so it is possible your problem is similar to mine.

In order to use the full A3 page on my printer (an HP1000C) I have to use
the following:

    set_plot, "printer",/copy
    r=dialog_printersetup()

   ; Get the page size (dependent upon page type selected from the dialog).

  DEVICE, GET_PAGE_SIZE=pageSize  ;  this is a secret command, not in
documentation !!

  ; Set the drawing area based on that page size.
  DEVICE, XOFFSET=0, YOFFSET=0, XSIZE=pageSize[0],
YSIZE=pageSize[1],/DEVICE
   ; Note that the DEVICE keyword is required for that last call (since
   ;  pageSize is measured in pixels).

    ;Note also that you may want to use only a portion of the overall page
    ;       size.  In this case, you can apply a proportional scale to the
queried page
    ;      size (and adjust the xoffset and yoffset as you wish).

Does this help?

Regards,
Michael Asten