devmonkey
Sep 06, 2004, 07:02 AM
I have been trying to print from expresspcb but it always prints a grey background and black grid behind the layout making it useless to use. I guess they do this so you have to use their pcb production service.
I solved this problem by printing the layout to a postscript file, removing the offending elements then sending the edited file to the printer. Result - a perfect print much better than can be achieved by screen capture or other such nastyness.
If you want to try this then download the postscript printer from adobe,
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=44&platform=Windows
and a postscript viewer like this one
http://www.rops.org/
or ghostscript if you prefer
Print to the postscript driver from expresspcb, then open the .ps file in a text editor. Scroll down the file until you get to the actual drawing commands, the section you are looking for looks like this:
%%EndResource
end reinitialize
N 594 1284 M 1734 1284 I 1734 2034 I 594 2034 I C
/DeviceGray dup setcolorspace /colspABC exch def
0.879 0 scol O : N 594 1284 3 3 rp C
0 0 scol L ; : N 624 1284 3 3 rp C
0 0 scol L ; : N 654 1284 3 3 rp C
0 0 scol L ; : N 684 1284 3 3 rp C
....
The grey background is drawn by the line
"N 594 1284 M 1734 1284 I 1734 2034 I 594 2034 I C "
so delete this.
The lines that look like "0 0 scol L ; : N 654 1284 3 3 rp C" are the dots of the grid - these are all bunched together so delete them all (there are obviously hundreds of them).
Open the ps file in your ps viewer and print it (or send it straight to the printer if your printer supports this). Easy, takes about 2mins to do.
If I get round to it i'll write a post processor to strip these lines automatically, but it is so easy to do manually it might not be worthwhile.
Cheers,
Joe
I solved this problem by printing the layout to a postscript file, removing the offending elements then sending the edited file to the printer. Result - a perfect print much better than can be achieved by screen capture or other such nastyness.
If you want to try this then download the postscript printer from adobe,
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=44&platform=Windows
and a postscript viewer like this one
http://www.rops.org/
or ghostscript if you prefer
Print to the postscript driver from expresspcb, then open the .ps file in a text editor. Scroll down the file until you get to the actual drawing commands, the section you are looking for looks like this:
%%EndResource
end reinitialize
N 594 1284 M 1734 1284 I 1734 2034 I 594 2034 I C
/DeviceGray dup setcolorspace /colspABC exch def
0.879 0 scol O : N 594 1284 3 3 rp C
0 0 scol L ; : N 624 1284 3 3 rp C
0 0 scol L ; : N 654 1284 3 3 rp C
0 0 scol L ; : N 684 1284 3 3 rp C
....
The grey background is drawn by the line
"N 594 1284 M 1734 1284 I 1734 2034 I 594 2034 I C "
so delete this.
The lines that look like "0 0 scol L ; : N 654 1284 3 3 rp C" are the dots of the grid - these are all bunched together so delete them all (there are obviously hundreds of them).
Open the ps file in your ps viewer and print it (or send it straight to the printer if your printer supports this). Easy, takes about 2mins to do.
If I get round to it i'll write a post processor to strip these lines automatically, but it is so easy to do manually it might not be worthwhile.
Cheers,
Joe