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Legacy file formats

D

D Yuniskis

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hi,

I had to dig out some ancient drawings (HPGL, gerber set)
late last night. Of course, the originals from which they
were created are not readable by anything "modern" (but,
then again, this is probably true for many things from 2009!).

Thankfully, I have kept all tools and suitable hardware to run
those tools on so that I can recover these sorts of things.

But, it begs the question: what is the tool-du-jour for
reading/viewing/printing/converting *common* >>>OUTPUT<<<
file formats? I.e., if I run off HPGL's of all schematics,
mechanical CAD, etc. and Gerbers of all board artwork,
what tool will give me the most access to those documents
in those forms?

Thx,
--don
 
M

mike

Jan 1, 1970
0
D said:
Hi,

I had to dig out some ancient drawings (HPGL, gerber set)
late last night. Of course, the originals from which they
were created are not readable by anything "modern" (but,
then again, this is probably true for many things from 2009!).

Thankfully, I have kept all tools and suitable hardware to run
those tools on so that I can recover these sorts of things.

But, it begs the question: what is the tool-du-jour for
reading/viewing/printing/converting *common* >>>OUTPUT<<<
file formats? I.e., if I run off HPGL's of all schematics,
mechanical CAD, etc. and Gerbers of all board artwork,
what tool will give me the most access to those documents
in those forms?

Thx,
--don
Go visit the microsoft office site.
They typically have a large number of filters to allow
"Word" to open different file formats.
In particular, HPGL

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - Q196506
WD: 32-Bit Filter for Importing HPGL Graphics
The information in this article applies to:

* Microsoft Word 97 for Windows
* Microsoft Word 2000

Summary
Microsoft Word 97 and Word 2000 do not include a filter for importing
HPGL format graphics files. However, a 32-bit HPGL filter now available
from Microsoft Product Support Services can be used with all 32-bit
versions of Microsoft Word.

This file is supplied to allow you to import HPGL graphics files into
Word 97 or later versions (or any other program that uses the common
32-bit graphics filters).

The HPGL filter does not ship with Word 97 or later versions.

The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download
Center:
Hpgl32.exe
 
A

Andrew Smallshaw

Jan 1, 1970
0
But, it begs the question: what is the tool-du-jour for
reading/viewing/printing/converting *common* >>>OUTPUT<<<
file formats? I.e., if I run off HPGL's of all schematics,
mechanical CAD, etc. and Gerbers of all board artwork,
what tool will give me the most access to those documents
in those forms?

For HPGL I've always used the "hp2xx" package but I'm Unix based
which your headers suggest you are not. Possibly it would not be
that difficult to port, especially if you are willing to drop X11
support and use it purely for file conversion: it that case I can't
se why it would _need_ to leave the ANSI C API.
 
N

Nico Coesel

Jan 1, 1970
0
Andrew Smallshaw said:
For HPGL I've always used the "hp2xx" package but I'm Unix based

IIRC I have used that on Windows XP as well so someone probably ported
it already.
 
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