About Chandra Archive Proposer Instruments & Calibration Newsletters Data Analysis HelpDesk Calibration Database NASA Archives & Centers Chandra Science Links

Skip the navigation links
Last modified: December 2006

URL: http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao3.4/print.html
Hardcopy (PDF): A4 | Letter
AHELP for CIAO 3.4 print Context: chips

Synopsis

Creates a hardcopy of the current plot.

Syntax

chips> PRINT {[<device>] | POSTFILE <filename>}

Description

If no printer device is specified, the output will be sent to the default printer as specified in the user's environment. The "POSTFILE <filename>" argument creates a PostScript file in the current directory if no pathname is included.

There are two new commands in CIAO 3.0 that may be used to configure the look of the output: COLORSYS sets the color system (RGB, CMYK, grayscale) and PAGESIZE indicates the page dimensions of the hardcopy plot.

Note that the new COLORSYS command deprecates the former method of creating CMYK plots, namely:

  chips> PRINT "postfileCMYK <filename>"

The postscript drivers work well for plots no bigger than 8x8 inch or portrait plots up to about 8x10 inches. Any other setup causes problems due to inconsistant handling of margins that causes errors in calculating the bounding box. The result is that the output of "print postfile" may be clipped even if the pagesize is set correctly; this is most likely to affect plots oriented as "landscape" layout.

If creating a smaller plot is not an option, try one of these workarounds:

  • edit the bounding box by hand in PS file
  • delete the bounding box definition from the PS file
  • gv has the option to change or ignore the bounding box when viewing a PS file

CIAO allows some plot attributes to be changed using the ChIPS state object and resource file. See "ahelp chips" for further details.

Example 1

  chips> CURVE data/example.dat
  chips> print(chips.colorsys)
  rgb
  chips> PRINT POSTFILE plot_rgb.ps
  chips> COLORSYS CMYK
  chips> PRINT POSTFILE plot_cmyk.ps

A curve is plotted and written out first as an RGB postscript file, then as a CMYK postscript file; see "ahelp colorsys" for an explanation of the syntax used.

Example 2

  chips> CURVE example2.dat
  chips> PRINT 

A curve is plotted and a hardcopy is printed on the system's printer.

Bugs

See the bugs page for ChIPS on the CIAO website for an up-to-date listing of known bugs.

Hardcopy (PDF): A4 | Letter
Last modified: December 2006



The Chandra X-Ray Center (CXC) is operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA.    Email: cxcweb@head.cfa.harvard.edu
Smithsonian Institution, Copyright © 1998-2004. All rights reserved.