"Doing" datasheets
martin griffith
and documentation.
And again I'm a bit lost
I lke the format that www.rane.com or Jim Williams's stuff on
www.linear.com , ie text, PCB layout and schematics in the same PDF
datasheet.
How do I export/print to file diagrams from my Accel sch/pcb package.
I can use a facility like pdf995 (printer look alike software) to
produce a pdf file, that I can zoom into without loss of resolution.
(the buzzword is Scalable Vector Graphics, according too google)
I dont have micro$oft word, just wordpad and Open Office. OO is not
exactly intuative, but can OO do this sort of thing? If so, how?
Should I hire a typist? Do I have to blow the cobwebs off my
creditcards? How many puns can John Woodgate find here?
Thanks
martin
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"
Gandhi
John Woodgate
<marting...@Xyahoo.co.uk> wrote (in <c89c21pflea4ofnend1s49p434t2lo
ao...@4ax.com>) about '"Doing" datasheets', on Wed, 2 Mar 2005:
>I dont have micro$oft word, just wordpad and Open Office. OO is not
>exactly intuative, but can OO do this sort of thing?
What sort of thing? You covered getting the graphics into a PDF in your
previous paragraph.
>If so, how?
Tell us a bit more about what you want to do.
>Should
>I hire a typist?
Depend how you feel about two-finger typing and how much text you have
to produce. I've done 7000 words in one day with two fingers, but I
don't recommend it.
>Do I have to blow the cobwebs off my creditcards?
That thing isn't a flattened gold spider, you know!
>How
>many puns can John Woodgate find here?
It appears to be a pun desert, but some people can see them better than
I can.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk
martin griffith
Woodgate <j...@jmwa.demon.contraspam.yuk> wrote:
>I read in sci.electronics.design that martin griffith
><marting...@Xyahoo.co.uk> wrote (in <c89c21pflea4ofnend1s49p434t2lo
>ao...@4ax.com>) about '"Doing" datasheets', on Wed, 2 Mar 2005:
>
>>I dont have micro$oft word, just wordpad and Open Office. OO is not
>>exactly intuative, but can OO do this sort of thing?
>
>What sort of thing? You covered getting the graphics into a PDF in your
>previous paragraph.
>
>>If so, how?
>
>Tell us a bit more about what you want to do.
>
>>Should
>>I hire a typist?
>
>Depend how you feel about two-finger typing and how much text you have
>to produce. I've done 7000 words in one day with two fingers, but I
>don't recommend it.
>
>>Do I have to blow the cobwebs off my creditcards?
>
>That thing isn't a flattened gold spider, you know!
>
>>How
>>many puns can John Woodgate find here?
>
>It appears to be a pun desert, but some people can see them better than
>I can.
Hi John,
Had too many glasses of wine...1999 seems to have been a reasonable
year
I can create a pdf file with pdf995 from my CAD system. but this only
makes a pdf of the CAD output
But I dont know how create a pdf with text, with the output from my
CAD system showing between the paragraphs of my text. I could insert
bmp/jpg screen dumps of the CAD , but that looks sort of "Sir Clive
Sinclar-ish"
I'm just lost with WP stuff
jsmith
sheets to an engineering oriented group, engineers are clueless about the
graphics world (and most other worlds as well!!)
Secondly, you should invest in a second hand Power Mac for about $99.00.
(Better than any modern day PC and their convoluted Microsoft operating
system)
Third, you need a program like Adobe PhotoDeluxe which often comes bundled
with Epson printer software and is free from that stand point. It will allow
you to convert any scanned images into a PDF file. (Note you will need a
scanner too)
Fourth, go onto e-bay and buy any version of QuarkXpress desktop publishing
software. It is incredibly intuitive and will allow you to create virtually
any data sheet page layout you can want.
Good luck.
"martin griffith" <marting...@Xyahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:rtbc21l2n1tfj9iq3...@4ax.com...
John Larkin
OO, do I have a deal for you:
We use this...
It's a virtual printer driver that lets most any program output all
sorts of graphic files. GIFs seem to work best for us. The gif can be
pasted into any Word or WP or OO document. For Word, just find the gif
file name in its folder, right-click "copy", then go into your
document and right-click "paste"; that's a lot easier than the "insert
picture" nonsense. Use the "format picture" stuff to scale and rotate.
We also have the similar Adobe thing that captures to pdf images, but
we often have filesize or compatibility problems pasting that into
docs.
John
gwhite
>
> I can create a pdf file with pdf995 from my CAD system. but this only
> makes a pdf of the CAD output
> But I dont know how create a pdf with text, ...
I know exactly what you are talking about. I wanted to create text searchable
layout pdf's from Protel. It doesn't work because the print job is precision
artwork; it is all image, with no override (at least no text print override in
version 99se).
I did find a workaround that allows text searching in what is effectively a free
viewer in Acrobat.
I exported to dxf (at least I think it was dxf) and then imported to a cheapo
CAD program called Design Cad Express 3000. When printing from Design Cad
Express 3000 to pdf, I did not lose the text. In a way, this is a mistake
because the precision graphics were lost. However, it was a nice mistake
because precision is not needed for casual review by people such as tech's and
assemblers. They just want to find where the parts are on the board. Text
search functionally provides this.
I should warn though. There is a lot of work/touchup to get it how you want
before printing. For one, you'll need to make auxilliary CAD drawings that
strip all the junk you don't want to see on an assembly drawing. (Like most of
the polygon fill copper on component sides; and much other copper.) Other
little problems cropped up too.
However, the bottom line is that I accomplished it, and thus it is possible
others can too. I should note that I also tried importing into AutoCAD.
AutoCAD would not make the "nice mistake" of printing text as text. It came out
as images there too, just like in Protel. I don't know about other CAD packages
such as TurboCAD. Design Cad Express 3000 worked and is cheap. Funny thing is,
it is all I ever used it for.
Jim Thompson
<jjla...@highSNIPlandTHIStechPLEASEnology.com> wrote:
[snip]
>
>OO, do I have a deal for you:
>
>We use this...
>
>http://www.print-driver.com/
>
>It's a virtual printer driver that lets most any program output all
>sorts of graphic files.
[snip]
>
>John
>
Hi John, Is that program like a virtual printer? The web site
implies that it is a file converter.
What I want is a program that can "print" from any program, but
creates graphical files.
I have LeadTools ePrint IV, but it's a klutzy wonder that must have
been put together by PhD's ;-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Don Lancaster
> I read in sci.electronics.design that martin griffith
> <marting...@Xyahoo.co.uk> wrote (in <c89c21pflea4ofnend1s49p434t2lo
> ao...@4ax.com>) about '"Doing" datasheets', on Wed, 2 Mar 2005:
>
>
>>I dont have micro$oft word, just wordpad and Open Office. OO is not
>>exactly intuative, but can OO do this sort of thing?
>
>
> What sort of thing? You covered getting the graphics into a PDF in your
> previous paragraph.
>
>
>>If so, how?
>
>
> Tell us a bit more about what you want to do.
>
>
>>Should
>>I hire a typist?
>
>
> Depend how you feel about two-finger typing and how much text you have
> to produce. I've done 7000 words in one day with two fingers, but I
> don't recommend it.
>
>
>>Do I have to blow the cobwebs off my creditcards?
>
>
> That thing isn't a flattened gold spider, you know!
>
>
>>How
>>many puns can John Woodgate find here?
>
>
> It appears to be a pun desert, but some people can see them better than
> I can.
My free gonzo utilities at http://www.tinaja.com/post01.asp#gonzo give
you the highest possible data sheet and schematic quality.
But with a steep learning curve and purposely not WYSIWYG.
Zillions of examples on my web site.
--
Many thanks,
Don Lancaster
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
voice: (928)428-4073 email: d...@tinaja.com
Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com
John Larkin
<thegr...@example.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 15:25:03 -0800, John Larkin
><jjla...@highSNIPlandTHIStechPLEASEnology.com> wrote:
>
>[snip]
>>
>>OO, do I have a deal for you:
>>
>>We use this...
>>
>>http://www.print-driver.com/
>>
>>It's a virtual printer driver that lets most any program output all
>>sorts of graphic files.
>[snip]
>>
>>John
>>
>
>Hi John, Is that program like a virtual printer?
Yup. It shows up when you try to print anything, as just another print
device. Select it, and you get all sorts of menus and stuff.
> The web site
>implies that it is a file converter.
>
Might do that, too. I don't know. My cad guy uses it, mostly, and I
don't know a lot of the gory details.
>What I want is a program that can "print" from any program, but
>creates graphical files.
It does that. As I said, the gif's seem to be the best path for simple
line work from Autocad or Pads into a Word doc or just an image you
can email. For some reason jpegs come out huge, but that may just be a
setting or something; tiff's work fine but tiff's tend to crash Word.
>
>I have LeadTools ePrint IV, but it's a klutzy wonder that must have
>been put together by PhD's ;-)
Ah. PhDs. Say no more.
John
gwhite
>
> It does that. As I said, the gif's seem to be the best path for simple
> line work from Autocad or Pads into a Word doc or just an image you
> can email. For some reason jpegs come out huge, but that may just be a
> setting or something; tiff's work fine but tiff's tend to crash Word.
I'm assuming he wants to do search text -- otherwise there is no point that I
can think of. Images obviously provide no text search capability.
Suppose you have an assembly with 500+ parts, but you want your techs and
assemblers (and anyone else who needs to see it) to be able to use a free viewer
rather than an expensive+propietary viewer. They want to find *where* the parts
are efficiently. Text search in Acrobat provides this. Images don't.
Roger Lascelles
Here is how I do it :
1. Buy Adobe Acrobat. It is not cheap, but you don't have to keep upgrading
it every year because the readers are backwards compatible. I have Acrobat
V4. Acrobat gives you a couple of printer drivers just like pdf995, so you
can extract output from any program. In addition, Acrobat lets you combine
separate PDF pages to form a single document, so you can grab your PCB
output and some text and combine them. You can also add those "bookmarks"
which let people navigate the document, although in V4 that is clumsy.
Acrobat lets you extract goodies out of other people's PDFs, often even when
you aren't supposed to - simply print out of Acrobat to its own printer
driver and open the new PDF !
Someone else suggested a different Adobe product which also produces PDFs,
and that may be worth investigating.
2. Buy MS Word. Last time I looked, Open Office was clumsy and
complicated, ran slow and got confused. Word is simple, overpriced and just
works. The beauty of Word is that you can copy and paste just about
anything into a Word document : bitmaps, EMF (Windows own zoomable graphics
format), jpg, stuff out of your web browser, printscreen, html. I copy and
paste schematics out of TinyCAD (freeware) as EMF into Word and add some
verbage. I copy and paste graphs out of AIM-SPICE into Word. etc etc. I
can then print the Word doc to the PDF printer driver. Unfortunately, Word
does not accept PDF - so eventually Acrobat is needed to combine separate
PDFs.
Roger
Joop
...
>
>Hi John, Is that program like a virtual printer? The web site
>implies that it is a file converter.
>
>What I want is a program that can "print" from any program, but
>creates graphical files.
>
...
I have used PDFCreator a couple of times. It is an open source printer
driver. The created file size was usually pretty small, which implies
it uses text whenever it can instead of turning it into images.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Joop
R Adsett
l_o_u_s_tak...@xs4all.nl says...
> ...
> I have used PDFCreator a couple of times. It is an open source printer
> driver. The created file size was usually pretty small, which implies
> it uses text whenever it can instead of turning it into images.
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
Another possibility is Fineprint Factorypdf http://www.fineprint.com/
Like others it concatonates prints from multiple applications into a
single PDF.
Robert
John Larkin
>John Larkin wrote:
>>
>
>> It does that. As I said, the gif's seem to be the best path for simple
>> line work from Autocad or Pads into a Word doc or just an image you
>> can email. For some reason jpegs come out huge, but that may just be a
>> setting or something; tiff's work fine but tiff's tend to crash Word.
>
>I'm assuming he wants to do search text --
Why assume that? Jim didn't mention it.
>otherwise there is no point that I
>can think of.
No point in extracting printable images?
John
John Larkin
<inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>2. Buy MS Word. Last time I looked, Open Office was clumsy and
>complicated, ran slow and got confused. Word is simple, overpriced and just
>works. The beauty of Word is that you can copy and paste just about
>anything into a Word document : bitmaps, EMF (Windows own zoomable graphics
>format), jpg, stuff out of your web browser, printscreen, html.
I am the proud owner of a simple tiff file that crashes Word 2003
whenever I import it.
John
Jim Thompson
I am the proud owner of Office '97 ;-)
Word 2000 came on one of my laptops, but it simply looks to be
bloatware.
And I own Acrobat v5, but have v4 set up as the default.
I've never been able to figure out why programmers can't write NEW
things instead of bloating old things to beyond usefulness.
For instance I dearly love my Eudora Pro v3.0.5, it never fails me.
My wife's EP v4.3 is pure crap... designed by some YoYo who must think
he knows what the customer wants better than the customer does... and
they've now bloated it all the way up to v6.2 :-(
Spehro Pefhany
I remember looking at the tiff format definition once, IIRC it's a
dog's breakfast, more like a container file format. Ah, here's a file
that describes it:
http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/tiff/TIFF6.pdf
The real graphics guys like it (the TIFFs that Photoshop emits)
because it's lossless and always seems to work (probably because
everyone uses or is compatible with Photoshop rather than anything to
do with TIFF). My digital SLR has a RAW format that is MUCH more
compact and is still lossless. Not much of a difference on a big HDD
but the CF card I have is not very large (only half a gig) so it would
fill up quickly if the images were not fairly compact.
<cool- Globalflyer is just touching down> Quite a trip.
Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
sp...@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
John Woodgate
<thegr...@example.com> wrote (in <bfpe21hbmiimqh5et2mddbcqb6ae8gja1g@
4ax.com>) about '"Doing" datasheets', on Thu, 3 Mar 2005:
>I've never been able to figure out why programmers can't write NEW
>things instead of bloating old things to beyond usefulness.
Look what the hardware guys did to the 4004!(;-)
gwhite
>
> On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 02:25:20 GMT, gwhite <gwh...@deadend.com> wrote:
>
> >John Larkin wrote:
> >>
> >
> >> It does that. As I said, the gif's seem to be the best path for simple
> >> line work from Autocad or Pads into a Word doc or just an image you
> >> can email. For some reason jpegs come out huge, but that may just be a
> >> setting or something; tiff's work fine but tiff's tend to crash Word.
> >
> >I'm assuming he wants to do search text --
>
> Why assume that? Jim didn't mention it.
Well it is possible I misinterpreted it: "text" and "pcb layout" were in the
same sentance, and of all the info to be included, only pcb files are typically
absent searchable text.
It is quite easy to produce the pdf's and then merge the pdf's with the _insert
page_ control, so I perhaps I went beyond what was being asked in my
interpretation. I thought more was desired, since merging is quite simple.
> >otherwise there is no point that I
> >can think of.
>
> No point in extracting printable images?
That's not what I wrote. I wrote there was no point in going to the
trouble of getting a pdf with actual text unless he actually wanted to search
it. (At least that I can think of.) If he doesn't want searchable text he
might as well just print the image, in whatever form. There is a difference
between actual text and image that looks like text.
Active8
> First of all, you should not be asking such a question about doing data
> sheets to an engineering oriented group, engineers are clueless about the
> graphics world (and most other worlds as well!!)
There's a lot of knowlege outside of EE in this group.
>
<snip>
>
> Fourth, go onto e-bay and buy any version of QuarkXpress desktop publishing
> software. It is incredibly intuitive and will allow you to create virtually
> any data sheet page layout you can want.
>
Quark is used by publishers and newspapers, so that might not be a
bad idea if he's planning on going outside the realm of electronic
media.
<snip>
--
Best Regards,
Mike
Active8
<snip>
>
> I can create a pdf file with pdf995 from my CAD system. but this only
> makes a pdf of the CAD output
> But I dont know how create a pdf with text, with the output from my
> CAD system showing between the paragraphs of my text. I could insert
> bmp/jpg screen dumps of the CAD , but that looks sort of "Sir Clive
> Sinclar-ish"
Take screen shots of the schems and make a web page. Then use
pdf995. It's worthless for anything else. I've found Mathematica
makes an excellent webpage out of notebooks filled with equations.
IIRC MatCAD does too, but I didn't like the way it did[n't] do
higher than 1st degree derivatives like d2v/dt2.
--
Best Regards,
Mike
Active8
<snip>
> [...] designed by some YoYo who must think
<snip>
If you'd have seen that 4 or 5 year old Yo-Yo champion on Ripley's
last night, and the things he does with Yo-Yos, you'd understand why
Yo-Yos are as FUBAR as they are.
Trivia: They said that stone Yo-Yos were used way back when as
hunting weapons.
--
Best Regards,
Mike
Ken Smith
Jim Thompson <thegr...@example.com> wrote:
[...]
>I've never been able to figure out why programmers can't write NEW
>things instead of bloating old things to beyond usefulness.
They are stupid. Now you know :>
Actually I think it is because programming classes spend a billion hours
on coding and five minutes on design. It is easy to add a bunch of stuff
to a program. It is a lot harder to figure out how to make the user
interface more straight forward to use.
--
--
kens...@rahul.net forging knowledge
Paul Hovnanian P.E.
develop an XML schema for component data sheets?
Theoretically, this would make putting component data into databases,
making it easily searchable on various parameters, etc.
In practice, it would make for some interesting fights between various
vendors and other interested parties which could provide us all with
months of entertainment.
--
Paul Hovnanian mailto:Pa...@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
The ark was skippered by amateurs, the Titanic was skippered by
professionals.
Jim Thompson
wrote:
When I was a kid Yo-Yo's were the in-thing. Yo-Yo champions would
visit the schools and we took a big recess to watch them do their
tricks. Then they'd sell all us suckers a Yo-Yo... IIRC they were
Duncan Yo-Yo's.
Jim Thompson
wrote:
I use the PDFWriter than accompanies Adobe Acrobat as a virtual
printer... "prints" directly from my schematic capture, and DOES make
searchable text.
But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.
gwhite
>
> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 18:40:49 -0500, Active8 <reply...@ndbbm.net>
> wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:40:23 +0100, martin griffith wrote:
> >
> ><snip>
> >>
> >> I can create a pdf file with pdf995 from my CAD system. but this only
> >> makes a pdf of the CAD output
> >> But I dont know how create a pdf with text, with the output from my
> >> CAD system showing between the paragraphs of my text. I could insert
> >> bmp/jpg screen dumps of the CAD , but that looks sort of "Sir Clive
> >> Sinclar-ish"
> >
> >Take screen shots of the schems and make a web page. Then use
> >pdf995. It's worthless for anything else. I've found Mathematica
> >makes an excellent webpage out of notebooks filled with equations.
> >IIRC MatCAD does too, but I didn't like the way it did[n't] do
> >higher than 1st degree derivatives like d2v/dt2.
>
> I use the PDFWriter than accompanies Adobe Acrobat as a virtual
> printer... "prints" directly from my schematic capture, and DOES make
> searchable text.
Schematics are no problem for getting searchable text in my experience. But pcb
layouts are a "problem" since they are supposed to print precision artwork. The
"text" for pcb's is simply image when printed. JL has me convinced that I
probably misinterpreted the desire of the OP.
But searchable text is cool for pdf layout drawings (really asm drawings) if you
want to distribute to folks who don't have the expensive source program (to find
components on complex boards).
> But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.
I've gotten to like png better than gif.
You can always alt-prntScrn and paste into Paint. Just crop/cut it up how you
want and save as gif. That's what I do.
Jim Thompson
Yep, PNG works best if your ultimate aim is a PowerPoint presentation.
John Larkin
<thegr...@example.com> wrote:
>
>Yep, PNG works best if your ultimate aim is a PowerPoint presentation.
>
Why in the world would that be anybody's ultimate aim?
http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/
John
Rich Grise
> But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.
>
Get Paint Shop Pro - you can download 4.12 here:
http://www.neodruid.net/Shareware/PSP412.exe
It's self-extracting, and shareware, but I offered to pay them for it
not too long ago, and they didn't even answer my email. It seems they're
on about v9 now.
Anyway, when your gif is on the screen, press either shift-prtsc, or
ctrl-prtsc, or alt-prtsc - one of those captures the whole screen to the
clipboard. You can tell which one, because the cursor blips. Open
paint shop pro, and hit control-V or edit/paste. That pastes the
screenshot in as a new image. Crop it as desired, and save as .gif.
Nothing to it!
Cheers!
Rich
Rich Grise
> While we're on this topic, are there any industry wide attempts to
> develop an XML schema for component data sheets?
>
> Theoretically, this would make putting component data into databases,
> making it easily searchable on various parameters, etc.
>
> In practice, it would make for some interesting fights between various
> vendors and other interested parties which could provide us all with
> months of entertainment.
Just take a spice file or whatever, and write it in xml. Should be
easy.
Cheers!
Rich
John Larkin
wrote:
Irfanview will do that. Hell, Paint will do that. But the clipboard
just has screen-pixel resolution, which looks like hell in a document.
John
Active8
> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 18:40:49 -0500, Active8 <reply...@ndbbm.net>
> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:40:23 +0100, martin griffith wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>>
>>> I can create a pdf file with pdf995 from my CAD system. but this only
>>> makes a pdf of the CAD output
>>> But I dont know how create a pdf with text, with the output from my
>>> CAD system showing between the paragraphs of my text. I could insert
>>> bmp/jpg screen dumps of the CAD , but that looks sort of "Sir Clive
>>> Sinclar-ish"
>>
>>Take screen shots of the schems and make a web page. Then use
>>pdf995. It's worthless for anything else. I've found Mathematica
>>makes an excellent webpage out of notebooks filled with equations.
>>IIRC MatCAD does too, but I didn't like the way it did[n't] do
>>higher than 1st degree derivatives like d2v/dt2.
>
> I use the PDFWriter than accompanies Adobe Acrobat as a virtual
> printer... "prints" directly from my schematic capture, and DOES make
> searchable text.
I bet it doesn't get searchable text out of Capture ;) I'm not going
to try right now, but I've a hunch.
>
> But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.
>
Most definitely. Stinkin' pdfs are big. I'm going to check out that
thing another poster linked. I bet it'll convert to .pngs, too.
These pngs, would've been over twice the size with gifs. And no
Compuserve!
http://home.earthlink.net/~mcolasono/tmp/fd-crack.png
http://home.earthlink.net/~mcolasono/tmp/2pi.png
--
Best Regards,
Mike
Active8
<snip>
>
> Yep, PNG works best if your ultimate aim is a PowerPoint presentation.
>
Unless that print driver to gif program gives you something you
can't get from psp, use your psp screen capture, the jpg/gif/png
wizards are much better than print screen.
--
Best Regards,
Mike
Active8
ROFL. The "Home" page link is to the whitehouse site!
Check out the base URL. The real home page, that is.
--
Best Regards,
Mike
Active8
The UI is only a small part of "design". The only easy way to do one
other than VB is on Linux 'cause all the UI designers for windows
suck.
The real design part only requires a pencil and paper and a some
thought to distill the internal functioning of the app into
something OO that's easy to upgrade.
--
Best Regards,
Mike
Daniel Haude
martin griffith <marting...@Xyahoo.co.uk> wrote
in Msg. <c89c21pflea4ofnen...@4ax.com>
> I'm think of tidying up (my lack of) procedures in making data sheets
> and documentation.
I'd export drawings as EPS and wrap it all up with Latex oder pdfLatex.
You get:
- searchable text
- scalable (non-pixelated) graphics
- small filesize.
I'm also quite comfortable with OpenOffice's pdf export option, but I
haven't done embedded images with OO yet and I don't know how it handles
vector graphics.
Note that EPS (Postscript) is not a vector format but can also contain
pixel graphics. Make sure your layout program exports true vector graphics
to EPS.
--D.
Fred Bartoli
"John Woodgate" <j...@jmwa.demon.contraspam.yuk> a écrit dans le message de
news:+EdankAG...@jmwa.demon.co.uk...
> I read in sci.electronics.design that Jim Thompson
> <thegr...@example.com> wrote (in <bfpe21hbmiimqh5et2mddbcqb6ae8gja1g@
> 4ax.com>) about '"Doing" datasheets', on Thu, 3 Mar 2005:
> >I've never been able to figure out why programmers can't write NEW
> >things instead of bloating old things to beyond usefulness.
>
> Look what the hardware guys did to the 4004!(;-)
Sure. It was (and still is) a nice diode.
Its successors are much much more leaky, withstands much lower reverse
voltage and have an unbelievable number of strange parasitic behaviours.
Weird.
--
Thanks,
Fred.
Bob Stephens
> When I was a kid Yo-Yo's were the in-thing. Yo-Yo champions would
> visit the schools and we took a big recess to watch them do their
> tricks. Then they'd sell all us suckers a Yo-Yo... IIRC they were
> Duncan Yo-Yo's.
Yup. They were still around when I was a kid in Rhode Island. Came around
the schoolyard in a van full of Yo-Yo's. Kind of like today's crack
dealers.
Bob
Jim Thompson
>On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:32:22 -0700, Jim Thompson
><thegr...@example.com> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>Yep, PNG works best if your ultimate aim is a PowerPoint presentation.
>>
>
>Why in the world would that be anybody's ultimate aim? *
>
>http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/
Two of my father's birthdays ago we decided to walk Gettysburg. We
need to do it again. Everyone should be sure to visit there!
>
>John
* Some of my clients are insistent. Though I've now learned some
tricks with PDFs that are actually better for threading through a
design.
Jim Thompson
wrote:
>On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:28:59 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:
>
[snip]
>>
>> I use the PDFWriter than accompanies Adobe Acrobat as a virtual
>> printer... "prints" directly from my schematic capture, and DOES make
>> searchable text.
>
>I bet it doesn't get searchable text out of Capture ;) I'm not going
>to try right now, but I've a hunch.
>>
[snip]
I don't use Capture, except when a client asks for files in that
format.
I use the old original MicroSim PSpice Schematics ;-)
Keith Williams
thegr...@example.com says...
> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 18:40:49 -0500, Active8 <reply...@ndbbm.net>
> wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:40:23 +0100, martin griffith wrote:
> >
> ><snip>
> >>
> >> I can create a pdf file with pdf995 from my CAD system. but this only
> >> makes a pdf of the CAD output
> >> But I dont know how create a pdf with text, with the output from my
> >> CAD system showing between the paragraphs of my text. I could insert
> >> bmp/jpg screen dumps of the CAD , but that looks sort of "Sir Clive
> >> Sinclar-ish"
> >
> >Take screen shots of the schems and make a web page. Then use
> >pdf995. It's worthless for anything else. I've found Mathematica
> >makes an excellent webpage out of notebooks filled with equations.
> >IIRC MatCAD does too, but I didn't like the way it did[n't] do
> >higher than 1st degree derivatives like d2v/dt2.
>
> I use the PDFWriter than accompanies Adobe Acrobat as a virtual
> printer... "prints" directly from my schematic capture, and DOES make
> searchable text.
>
> But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.
I've started using ScreenPrint to create graphics files and then
include them in Frame. I've tried several similar packages and this
one is worth the $40.
http://www.softwarelabs.com/tsl4/3-screenprint.htm
--
Keith
John Larkin
But the Pentium I chips, the ones in the purplish ceramic package,
make superb x-acto knife sharpeners.
John
gwhite
>
> > I use the PDFWriter than accompanies Adobe Acrobat as a virtual
> > printer... "prints" directly from my schematic capture, and DOES make
> > searchable text.
>
> I bet it doesn't get searchable text out of Capture ;) I'm not going
> to try right now, but I've a hunch.
Schematic text sourced from Capture is searchable. This is known to be true for
at least Capture Ver 7.x thru 10.x. The text can be sustained because it is not
precision artwork, like gerbers are. Again, the text search "problem" is
pcb/asm docs sourced from the layout source program. It all prints to image.
For pcb/asm -> pdf, you can't find where "R132" is by doing cntl-f. I found a
strange workaround for asm-pdf drawings. I don't know if the solution is worth
the work.
gwhite
>
> > But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.
> >
> Most definitely. Stinkin' pdfs are big.
If you use Distiller, use the job options, and tweak the source file too, you
can often get it to both look good and be reasonable in size.
Since I don't really understand the graphic standards, I have not figured out
how to do it systematically. However, with rather blind trial and error I have
often achieved the "not to big" and "reasonable quality" goal in producing
pdf's. I wish I could say how to do it procedurally -- I can't. I reinvent the
wheel every time since I don't do it frequently enough. I suppose I should
write steps down next time.
> I'm going to check out that
> thing another poster linked. I bet it'll convert to .pngs, too.
> These pngs, would've been over twice the size with gifs.
> And no Compuserve!
True, I don't like Compuserve aspect either. MATLAB has never printed directly
to gif, not that it isn't fairly easy to take an extra step or two to get one.
The color of png is certainly better than gif, and it is usually a bit smaller
too. png really seems superior, but I don't know why.
Paul Hovnanian P.E.
The idea behind having an industry standard schema (structure and
tag/attribute names) is that everybody's datasheets can be imported into
applications. Apps like spice, parts databases, or inventory
applications can just 'drop in' any component if they are written to
import a standard schema.
--
Paul Hovnanian mailto:Pa...@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
Happily doing the work of 3 Men ... Moe, Larry & Curly
Active8
These PNGs are less than half the size of GIFs. I used PSP's PNG
wizard and didn't change any settings:
budgie
>Most definitely. Stinkin' pdfs are big.
I guess it's all relative. I use a PDF generator called PDFCreator which
installs as a virtual printer - I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread.
Recently I had occasion to "clean up" a third generation photocopy of a service
manual, comprising 5 A4 pages of text and one A4 schematic. The text went
through OCR to Word. I scanned the schematic and the raw output (600dpi, 1bpp)
was 3970kb. I trimmed the scan to the Word margins and pasted it in as page 6.
The entire Word document (as a .doc file) is 4025kb. "Printed" to a .PDF file,
it is 145kb. And that schematic came out *mint*, free of staircasing and all.
I was VERY impressed. You're welcome to a copy ;-)
Sorry for the long post but It's the only way the numbers tell the story.
Tim Hubberstey
>
> I guess it's all relative. I use a PDF generator called PDFCreator which
> installs as a virtual printer - I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread.
>
> Recently I had occasion to "clean up" a third generation photocopy of a service
> manual, comprising 5 A4 pages of text and one A4 schematic. The text went
> through OCR to Word. I scanned the schematic and the raw output (600dpi, 1bpp)
> was 3970kb. I trimmed the scan to the Word margins and pasted it in as page 6.
> The entire Word document (as a .doc file) is 4025kb. "Printed" to a .PDF file,
> it is 145kb. And that schematic came out *mint*, free of staircasing and all.
> I was VERY impressed. You're welcome to a copy ;-)
I also use PDFCreator and it is far superior to PDF995 (also free). The
"auto-naming with filtering" feature makes it very painless to use. The
small size of the produced PDFs is a result of the built-in compression
engine.
PDFCreator is freeware available at
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/>, in case that hasn't been
mentioned.
--
Tim Hubberstey, P.Eng. . . . . . Hardware/Software Consulting Engineer
Marmot Engineering . . . . . . . VHDL, ASICs, FPGAs, embedded systems
Vancouver, BC, Canada . . . . . . . . . . . http://www.marmot-eng.com