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The pen file is used by plot preview and some plot drivers (namely HPGL/2 and the windows driver) to specify the colours for pens in a plot. When processing a plot, certain pens are used for parts of the plot. The pen file is used to make sure that both plot preview and the plot driver used will output correct colours for each of these pens.

To run this function: Choose Plotting > Plotting colours > Pen colour properties, or...

• In the Function Chooser, type PLOT EDIT PEN FILE, and press ENTER.

A pen file contains several pieces of information. Firstly, a palette must be selected that the colour names are contained in. Secondly is a pen velocity that is used to define the plot quality in a HPGL/2 plot. Finally, each pen needs to have a colour and a thickness associated with it. If either of these is not defined, than a default value is used.

It is possible to have more than one pen file. However, the pen file that is used is the one defined in defaults.ssi as the plotting.pen_file. Change this value, and restart Surpac, and the pen file is changed. It may be necessary to have several different pen files for different plot types.

If you edit the pen file while in plot preview, the changes made will be automatically displayed on screen.

The Pen File Editor form will appear.

Palette

Select the palette that the pen colour specifications will come from. There are two standard palettes, crayola and HPGL2. To create or modify any palettes, use the Palette Editor.

Speed

This is the pen velocity for HPGL/2 pens. The slower the speed, the more ink on paper and the higher the quality of plot. 10 cm/s is a standard, normal quality plot.

Colour

Enter the colour for the pen number. The colours are taken from the palette specified.

Width

This shows the pen thickness. Thicker or thinner lines can be created by changing this value. Thickness will be displayed on screen, but may not be exactly the same as the thickness on paper, and will differ slightly for different machines. To adjust the thickness in plot preview for your machine, you may need to modify the plotting.thickness_adjustment field in your defaults.ssi file. A value between 1.5 and 2 seems appropriate for nearly all occasions. A value of zero will cause the input thickness values to be ignored.

Select Apply to save the pen file.

Results

The pen file will be saved to the file specified in the defaults.ssi file, under the plotting.pen_file tag. All changes to the pens, palettes and velocity will be saved to this file. If a pen is specified incorrectly, then its definition will be ignored.