Converting PCL bitmaps to PDF?

I am trying to get a presentable hard copy from Orcad SDT/386 which
can be emailed etc to people.

I have PLOTALL working, and outputting in postscript, all fine, and by
importing the .ps file into say Corel Draw I get a fine schematic.

Except the fonts are useless.

Remembering back to the 1980s, when I used to plot huge Orcad
schematics on a $15000 Calcomp pen plotter (in HPGL emulation) we had
the same issue. The text does not line up properly with the wires etc.
The basic issue is that the fonts used by PLOTALL do not resemble the
nice bitmapped ones used within Orcad (which are used by PRINTALL).

If one could run PRINTALL and generate a PCL file (which one can; it
is a pure bitmap with no font information) and then converted that to
some graphical image, or alternatively ran some other driver (did
anybody write Orcad drivers which output TIFF?), that would do it
because images can be easily manipulated and printed to a PDF using
Acrobat.

Peter <nospam@nospam9876.com> sent on December 3rd, 2010:
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"I am trying to get a presentable hard copy from Orcad SDT/386 which  |
|can be emailed etc to people.                                         |
|                                                                      |
|I have PLOTALL working, and outputting in postscript, all fine, and by|
|importing the .ps file into say Corel Draw I get a fine schematic.    |
|                                                                      |
|Except the fonts are useless.                                         |
|                                                                      |
|[..]                                                                  |
|                                                                      |
|If one could run PRINTALL and generate a PCL file (which one can; it  |
|is a pure bitmap with no font information) and then converted that to |
|some graphical image, or alternatively ran some other driver (did     |
|anybody write Orcad drivers which output TIFF?), that would do it     |
|because images can be easily manipulated and printed to a PDF using   |
|Acrobat."                                                             |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|


I do not have that program, but I have some ideas. However, it is not
really clear why you posted, as you seem to have already devised a
solution (which you have not tried yet).

If the fonts as shown in the Postscript file are useless only in Corel
Draw (i.e. you would be happy with the fonts just being bitmapped in
another program but Corel Draw is not good at displaying them), then
perhaps you could try the program ps2pdf

Otherwise, if the Postscript file itself is unsatisfactory, then you
could take a screenshot when running Orcad and paste it into a
graphical program.

Regards,
Paul Colin

On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:10:19 +0000, Peter <nospam@nospam9876.com>
wrote:

>I am trying to get a presentable hard copy from Orcad SDT/386 which
>can be emailed etc to people.
>
>I have PLOTALL working, and outputting in postscript, all fine, and by
>importing the .ps file into say Corel Draw I get a fine schematic.
>
>Except the fonts are useless.
>
>Remembering back to the 1980s, when I used to plot huge Orcad
>schematics on a $15000 Calcomp pen plotter (in HPGL emulation) we had
>the same issue. The text does not line up properly with the wires etc.
>The basic issue is that the fonts used by PLOTALL do not resemble the
>nice bitmapped ones used within Orcad (which are used by PRINTALL).
>
>If one could run PRINTALL and generate a PCL file (which one can; it
>is a pure bitmap with no font information) and then converted that to
>some graphical image, or alternatively ran some other driver (did
>anybody write Orcad drivers which output TIFF?), that would do it
>because images can be easily manipulated and printed to a PDF using
>Acrobat.

Can you print to CutePDF?

John

On 03/12/10 17:10, Peter wrote:
> I am trying to get a presentable hard copy from Orcad SDT/386 which
> can be emailed etc to people.
>
> I have PLOTALL working, and outputting in postscript, all fine, and by
> importing the .ps file into say Corel Draw I get a fine schematic.
>
> Except the fonts are useless.
>
> Remembering back to the 1980s, when I used to plot huge Orcad
> schematics on a $15000 Calcomp pen plotter (in HPGL emulation) we had
> the same issue. The text does not line up properly with the wires etc.
> The basic issue is that the fonts used by PLOTALL do not resemble the
> nice bitmapped ones used within Orcad (which are used by PRINTALL).
>
> If one could run PRINTALL and generate a PCL file (which one can; it
> is a pure bitmap with no font information) and then converted that to
> some graphical image, or alternatively ran some other driver (did
> anybody write Orcad drivers which output TIFF?), that would do it
> because images can be easily manipulated and printed to a PDF using
> Acrobat.

Install "pdfcreator" from <http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/> 
This will give you a "pdf printer" - any program on windows can then 
generate pdf files as a simple printout.

You can also open postscript files with pdfcreator, and then generate a 
pdf file from that (though I can't guarantee the fonts will be right - 
it's easy to mess up postscript fonts).

On Dec 3, 12:29=A0pm, David Brown
<david.br...@removethisbit.hesbynett.no> wrote:
> On 03/12/10 17:10, Peter wrote:
>
>
>
> > I am trying to get a presentable hard copy from Orcad SDT/386 which
> > can be emailed etc to people.
>
> > I have PLOTALL working, and outputting in postscript, all fine, and by
> > importing the .ps file into say Corel Draw I get a fine schematic.
>
> > Except the fonts are useless.
>
> Install "pdfcreator" from <http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/>
> This will give you a "pdf printer" - any program on windows can then
> generate pdf files as a simple printout.
>
> You can also open postscript files with pdfcreator, and then generate a
> pdf file from that (though I can't guarantee the fonts will be right -
> it's easy to mess up postscript fonts).

Isn't that version of Orcad DOS based?  Various PDF printers are
unlikely to be of use in that I case I expect.

Searching for PCL viewer brings up some possibilities though
(including free).  Once in a Windows viewer it might be possible to
print to a PDF.


Robert

Hi Peter,

[long sea, no thyme]

Peter wrote:
> I am trying to get a presentable hard copy from Orcad SDT/386 which
> can be emailed etc to people.

<frown>  I suspect you *don't* mean "hard copy" (since it is
awfully hard to *E*mail).  Rather, some "portable document
format" that your recipients are likely to be able to
"print"/view, locally...

> I have PLOTALL working, and outputting in postscript, all fine, and by
> importing the .ps file into say Corel Draw I get a fine schematic.
> 
> Except the fonts are useless.

Do you know if the font problem is associated with Corel's presentation
of the PS file?  Or, are they botched in the original document (which
corel is reproducing faithfully)?

> Remembering back to the 1980s, when I used to plot huge Orcad
> schematics on a $15000 Calcomp pen plotter (in HPGL emulation) we had
> the same issue. The text does not line up properly with the wires etc.
> The basic issue is that the fonts used by PLOTALL do not resemble the
> nice bitmapped ones used within Orcad (which are used by PRINTALL).

Ah, OK.  That answers my question -- the PS file is hosed (useless).

> If one could run PRINTALL and generate a PCL file (which one can; it
> is a pure bitmap with no font information) and then converted that to
> some graphical image, or alternatively ran some other driver (did
> anybody write Orcad drivers which output TIFF?), that would do it
> because images can be easily manipulated and printed to a PDF using
> Acrobat.

Why can't you do exactly this?  Or, does that (old) version
not go through the windows drivers, etc. (i.e., DOS client
writing directly to LPT:)?

[regards to J, S & J]

D Yuniskis wrote:
> Hi Peter,
> 
> [long sea, no thyme]
> 
> Peter wrote:
>> I am trying to get a presentable hard copy from Orcad SDT/386 which
>> can be emailed etc to people.
> 
> <frown>  I suspect you *don't* mean "hard copy" (since it is
> awfully hard to *E*mail).  Rather, some "portable document
> format" that your recipients are likely to be able to
> "print"/view, locally...
> 
>> I have PLOTALL working, and outputting in postscript, all fine, and by
>> importing the .ps file into say Corel Draw I get a fine schematic.
>>
>> Except the fonts are useless.
> 
> Do you know if the font problem is associated with Corel's presentation
> of the PS file?  Or, are they botched in the original document (which
> corel is reproducing faithfully)?
> 
>> Remembering back to the 1980s, when I used to plot huge Orcad
>> schematics on a $15000 Calcomp pen plotter (in HPGL emulation) we had
>> the same issue. The text does not line up properly with the wires etc.
>> The basic issue is that the fonts used by PLOTALL do not resemble the
>> nice bitmapped ones used within Orcad (which are used by PRINTALL).
> 
> Ah, OK.  That answers my question -- the PS file is hosed (useless).
> 
>> If one could run PRINTALL and generate a PCL file (which one can; it
>> is a pure bitmap with no font information) and then converted that to
>> some graphical image, or alternatively ran some other driver (did
>> anybody write Orcad drivers which output TIFF?), that would do it
>> because images can be easily manipulated and printed to a PDF using
>> Acrobat.
> 
> Why can't you do exactly this?  Or, does that (old) version
> not go through the windows drivers, etc. (i.e., DOS client
> writing directly to LPT:)?
> 
> [regards to J, S & J]

Have a look at http://pclconvert.com/

In particular, PCLprint might work for you (when wired to PDFwriter
in windows).  Once in Acrobat, you can diddle with it to your heart's
content (?)

On Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:10:19 +0000, Peter <nospam@nospam9876.com>
wrote:

>I am trying to get a presentable hard copy from Orcad SDT/386 which
>can be emailed etc to people.
>
>I have PLOTALL working, and outputting in postscript, all fine, and by
>importing the .ps file into say Corel Draw I get a fine schematic.
>
>Except the fonts are useless.
>
>Remembering back to the 1980s, when I used to plot huge Orcad
>schematics on a $15000 Calcomp pen plotter (in HPGL emulation) we had
>the same issue. The text does not line up properly with the wires etc.
>The basic issue is that the fonts used by PLOTALL do not resemble the
>nice bitmapped ones used within Orcad (which are used by PRINTALL).
>
>If one could run PRINTALL and generate a PCL file (which one can; it
>is a pure bitmap with no font information) and then converted that to
>some graphical image, or alternatively ran some other driver (did
>anybody write Orcad drivers which output TIFF?), that would do it
>because images can be easily manipulated and printed to a PDF using
>Acrobat.


Go to http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/OldDosOrcad/ and join the
group. Then go to the files section and download sch2pdf.zip. This
will give you a very pretty PDF of your schematic that has searchable
text. You need to run this on Windows NT, 2k, or XP as the batch file
uses newer commands not found in DOS, Win 95/98.

SDT_printer_drivers.zip has PCL printer drivers and a converter for
PCL to PCX image format. This is used when you need to include a copy
of your schematic in a word processor document.

Hi Peter,

> Have a look at http://pclconvert.com/
> 
> In particular, PCLprint might work for you (when wired to PDFwriter
> in windows).  Once in Acrobat, you can diddle with it to your heart's
> content (?)

A "free" (trial) option might be:

http://www.ivanview.com/converter/pcl-batch-converter.html

N.B. I have no first-hand experience with either of these.
However, I will be exploring the issue as it seems a handy
"general purpose" tool to have available...

Thank you all.

 qrk <SpamTrap@spam.net> wrote:

>Go to http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/OldDosOrcad/ and join the
>group. Then go to the files section and download sch2pdf.zip. This
>will give you a very pretty PDF of your schematic that has searchable
>text. You need to run this on Windows NT, 2k, or XP as the batch file
>uses newer commands not found in DOS, Win 95/98.

That was exactly the solution, developed by "QRK" above ;)

Orcad SDT will print to PS, via its PSCRIPT.DRV driver.

Then one uses Ghostscript to generate a PDF from the postscript file.

The rather complicated batch file uses some sed invocations to pipe
the postscript while changing the name of the font to another font
which more closely represents the one originally used in Orcad SDT.

So, problem solved. One also ends up with a searchable PDF which is
quite slick. But I think somebody spent an awful lot of time on this
batch file :)

>SDT_printer_drivers.zip has PCL printer drivers and a converter for
>PCL to PCX image format. This is used when you need to include a copy
>of your schematic in a word processor document.

Yes, that is another way to do it. The resulting image files are
pretty big though.

Incidentally, is there a way to print a PDF such that the sheet covers
say two A4 pages, which can then be taped together?

With the original Orcad (DOS) bitmap printer drivers, this could be
arranged to happen automatically. It made larger schematics
readable...