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<title>ploticus: making paper-based output</title>
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<td><br><h2>making paper-based output</h2></td>
<td align=right>
<small>
<a href="../doc/Welcome.html"><img src="../doc/ploticus.gif" border=0></a><br>
<a href="../doc/Welcome.html">Welcome</a>
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<a href="../doc/Contents.html">Handbook</a>
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<br>
<title>Manual page for making_paper-based_output(PL)</title>
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<img src="../gallery/vermonth.gif"><br>
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<h2>PAPER-BASED REPORTS</h2>
<p>
Paper continues to play an essential role
for meeting materials and reports.<tt> </tt>
Fortunately, <b>ploticus</b> can create attractive data displays on paper,
using vector graphics and PoscScript fonts, and control over page layout
and pagination.<tt> </tt>
<br><br><br>
<h2>SUPPORTED PRINTER LANGUAGES</h2>
<p>
<b>Ploticus</b> can generate paginated PostScript or
Encapsulated PostScript (EPS).<tt> </tt>
Use the <tt>-ps</tt> command line option to get paginated PostScript;
use <tt>-eps</tt> for EPS.<tt> </tt>
Paginated PostScript may be sent directly to printers and
may contain multiple pages. EPS generally contains one picture or figure;
it may be printed directly or it may be imported by other software applications.<tt> </tt>
<br><br><br>
<h2>IMAGE IMPORT</h2>
<p>
Another way to work is to create PNG,
<a href="svg.html">
SVG
</a>
, or GIF files with <b>ploticus</b>,
and import these into your document.<tt> </tt>
<br><br><br>
<h2>CONSIDERATIONS</h2>
Here are some issues that come into play with paper-based reports:
<ul>
<li>
Color: paper-based reports must often must be in monochrome
due to photocopying limitations. A background color of white
gives the best results.<tt> </tt>
Printers convert colors to grays
but results may not be quite what you would expect.<tt> </tt>
Foreground and background colors may be controlled from <b>proc page</b>
or from the command line.<tt> </tt>
When creating EPS, the default background is <tt>transparent</tt>.<tt> </tt>
<li>
Fonts: PostScript and
<a href="svg.html">
SVG
</a>
fonts are more attractive than with the other
output formats. Style variations such as bold and italic, as
well as a wider range of sizes are available. A wide array of
symbols are also available under PostScript as well, and can
be accessed using
<a href="specialchars.html">
special character codes
</a>
.<tt> </tt>
<li>
When printing results directly,
graphs may need to be layed out properly with respect to
standard-sized sheets of paper.<tt> </tt>
<b>Proc areadef</b> includes several different methods for
specifying layout geometry.<tt> </tt>
<li>
Paper orientation is the way the paper is held. Paper may be portrait (tall)
or landscape (oblong). Orientation may be set in <b>proc page</b>
or on the command line.<tt> </tt>
<li>
Pagination - a single script file may generate multiple pages of results.<tt> </tt>
In <b>pl</b>, <b>proc page</b> is used to specify a page break.<tt> </tt>
<br>
<br>
</td></tr>
<td align=right>
<a href="Welcome.html">
<img src="../doc/ploticus.gif" border=0></a><br><small>data display engine <br>
<a href="../doc/Copyright.html">Copyright Steve Grubb</a>
<br>
<br>
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<img src="../gallery/all.gif">
</center>
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