A few more bits of info about plot files. Over the past few days I've
been tinkering with methods to reduce the size of the file to a
reasonable size so that I can routinely incorporate spectra into word
processing reports. In my experience, if you put too many 300K plot
files into a document, users running on PCs with low amounts of memory
often run into problems trying to play with the docs.
The formula I have arrived at is to tinker with the ghostscript defaults
in Xwinplot to get a smaller file. In
/u/prog/app-defaults/UtilPrinterSetup, line 43 reads:
TIFF,tiff24nc,-,1,
I changed that to:
TIFF,tiffg4,-r200x200,1,
and further down in this file, under "*paperTable:\", I added:
A6,a6,10.477,14.851,1.0,1.0,1.5,1.5,\
to the table.
This changes the TIFF output in Xwinplot to a 1-bit color depth, which
is no problem for the black & white output I want. In Xwinplot, I plot
to a file in TIFF format on a6 paper size (added above). Then, the
output can be handled by shareware such as xv (UNIX) or GraphicConverter
(Mac) to rotate the image by 90 deg. and save it as a standard TIFF.
This formula results in 200 DPI files that consumes about 50 % of a
letter-size page and gives data file sizes of ~ 120K. If you really
need 600 DPI resolution, just change the "TIFF" line above (at the cost
of bigger data file sizes). With typical Xwinplot templates, 200 DPI
permits you to decipher the parameter text.
I have experienced poor resolution and/or compatibilty problems with
trying to resize and manipulate PCX and TIFF images after XWinPlot
(which is really using ghostscript 'behind the curtain'). Transverter
Pro for Mac does a nice, but expensive (~US$400), job of converting PS
to TIFF directly. In our environment (50% Mac, 50% PC, WordPerfect,
some Word, Notes, Groupwise), uncompressed TIFFs seem to have the
highest graphic success rate across platforms, apps, and printers.
Any further suggestions welcomed!