"Doing" datasheets

gwhite · Mar 4, 2005

Jim Thompson wrote:

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 18:40:49 -0500, Active8 <reply2group@ndbbm.net
wrote:

On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:40:23 +0100, martin griffith wrote:

snip

I can create a pdf file with pdf995 from my CAD system. but this only
makes a pdf of the CAD output
But I dont know how create a pdf with text, with the output from my
CAD system showing between the paragraphs of my text. I could insert
bmp/jpg screen dumps of the CAD , but that looks sort of "Sir Clive
Sinclar-ish"

Take screen shots of the schems and make a web page. Then use
pdf995. It's worthless for anything else. I've found Mathematica
makes an excellent webpage out of notebooks filled with equations.
IIRC MatCAD does too, but I didn't like the way it did[n't] do
higher than 1st degree derivatives like d2v/dt2.

I use the PDFWriter than accompanies Adobe Acrobat as a virtual
printer... "prints" directly from my schematic capture, and DOES make
searchable text.

Schematics are no problem for getting searchable text in my experience. But pcb
layouts are a "problem" since they are supposed to print precision artwork. The
"text" for pcb's is simply image when printed. JL has me convinced that I
probably misinterpreted the desire of the OP.

But searchable text is cool for pdf layout drawings (really asm drawings) if you
want to distribute to folks who don't have the expensive source program (to find
components on complex boards).

But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.

I've gotten to like png better than gif.

You can always alt-prntScrn and paste into Paint. Just crop/cut it up how you
want and save as gif. That's what I do.

Jim Thompson · Mar 4, 2005

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 02:08:24 GMT, gwhite <gwhite@deadend.com> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 18:40:49 -0500, Active8 <reply2group@ndbbm.net
wrote:

On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:40:23 +0100, martin griffith wrote:

snip

I can create a pdf file with pdf995 from my CAD system. but this only
makes a pdf of the CAD output
But I dont know how create a pdf with text, with the output from my
CAD system showing between the paragraphs of my text. I could insert
bmp/jpg screen dumps of the CAD , but that looks sort of "Sir Clive
Sinclar-ish"

Take screen shots of the schems and make a web page. Then use
pdf995. It's worthless for anything else. I've found Mathematica
makes an excellent webpage out of notebooks filled with equations.
IIRC MatCAD does too, but I didn't like the way it did[n't] do
higher than 1st degree derivatives like d2v/dt2.

I use the PDFWriter than accompanies Adobe Acrobat as a virtual
printer... "prints" directly from my schematic capture, and DOES make
searchable text.

Schematics are no problem for getting searchable text in my experience. But pcb
layouts are a "problem" since they are supposed to print precision artwork. The
"text" for pcb's is simply image when printed. JL has me convinced that I
probably misinterpreted the desire of the OP.

But searchable text is cool for pdf layout drawings (really asm drawings) if you
want to distribute to folks who don't have the expensive source program (to find
components on complex boards).

But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.

I've gotten to like png better than gif.

You can always alt-prntScrn and paste into Paint. Just crop/cut it up how you
want and save as gif. That's what I do.

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

John Larkin · Mar 4, 2005

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:32:22 -0700, Jim Thompson
<thegreatone@example.com> wrote:

Yep, PNG works best if your ultimate aim is a PowerPoint presentation.

Why in the world would that be anybody's ultimate aim?

http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/

John

Rich Grise · Mar 4, 2005

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:28:59 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.

Get Paint Shop Pro - you can download 4.12 here:
http://www.neodruid.net/Shareware/PSP412.exe
It's self-extracting, and shareware, but I offered to pay them for it
not too long ago, and they didn't even answer my email. It seems they're
on about v9 now.

Anyway, when your gif is on the screen, press either shift-prtsc, or
ctrl-prtsc, or alt-prtsc - one of those captures the whole screen to the
clipboard. You can tell which one, because the cursor blips. Open
paint shop pro, and hit control-V or edit/paste. That pastes the
screenshot in as a new image. Crop it as desired, and save as .gif.

Nothing to it!

Cheers!
Rich

Rich Grise · Mar 4, 2005

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:24:14 -0800, Paul Hovnanian P.E. wrote:

While we're on this topic, are there any industry wide attempts to
develop an XML schema for component data sheets?

Theoretically, this would make putting component data into databases,
making it easily searchable on various parameters, etc.

In practice, it would make for some interesting fights between various
vendors and other interested parties which could provide us all with
months of entertainment.

Just take a spice file or whatever, and write it in xml. Should be
easy.

Cheers!
Rich

John Larkin · Mar 4, 2005

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 03:47:41 GMT, Rich Grise <richgrise@example.net>
wrote:

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:28:59 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.

Get Paint Shop Pro - you can download 4.12 here:
http://www.neodruid.net/Shareware/PSP412.exe
It's self-extracting, and shareware, but I offered to pay them for it
not too long ago, and they didn't even answer my email. It seems they're
on about v9 now.

Anyway, when your gif is on the screen, press either shift-prtsc, or
ctrl-prtsc, or alt-prtsc - one of those captures the whole screen to the
clipboard. You can tell which one, because the cursor blips. Open
paint shop pro, and hit control-V or edit/paste. That pastes the
screenshot in as a new image. Crop it as desired, and save as .gif.

Nothing to it!

Irfanview will do that. Hell, Paint will do that. But the clipboard
just has screen-pixel resolution, which looks like hell in a document.

John

Active8 · Mar 4, 2005

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:28:59 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 18:40:49 -0500, Active8 <reply2group@ndbbm.net
wrote:

On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 22:40:23 +0100, martin griffith wrote:

snip

I can create a pdf file with pdf995 from my CAD system. but this only
makes a pdf of the CAD output
But I dont know how create a pdf with text, with the output from my
CAD system showing between the paragraphs of my text. I could insert
bmp/jpg screen dumps of the CAD , but that looks sort of "Sir Clive
Sinclar-ish"

Take screen shots of the schems and make a web page. Then use
pdf995. It's worthless for anything else. I've found Mathematica
makes an excellent webpage out of notebooks filled with equations.
IIRC MatCAD does too, but I didn't like the way it did[n't] do
higher than 1st degree derivatives like d2v/dt2.

I use the PDFWriter than accompanies Adobe Acrobat as a virtual
printer... "prints" directly from my schematic capture, and DOES make
searchable text.

I bet it doesn't get searchable text out of Capture

I'm not going
to try right now, but I've a hunch.

But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.

Most definitely. Stinkin' pdfs are big. I'm going to check out that

thing another poster linked. I bet it'll convert to .pngs, too.
These pngs, would've been over twice the size with gifs. And no
Compuserve!

http://home.earthlink.net/~mcolasono/tmp/fd-crack.png
http://home.earthlink.net/~mcolasono/tmp/2pi.png

--
Best Regards,
Mike

Active8 · Mar 4, 2005

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:32:22 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:
<snip>

Yep, PNG works best if your ultimate aim is a PowerPoint presentation.

Unless that print driver to gif program gives you something you
can't get from psp, use your psp screen capture, the jpg/gif/png
wizards are much better than print screen.
--
Best Regards,
Mike

Active8 · Mar 4, 2005

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:02:52 -0800, John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:32:22 -0700, Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> wrote:

Yep, PNG works best if your ultimate aim is a PowerPoint presentation.

Why in the world would that be anybody's ultimate aim?

http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/

ROFL. The "Home" page link is to the whitehouse site!

Check out the base URL. The real home page, that is.
--
Best Regards,
Mike

Active8 · Mar 4, 2005

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 00:01:49 +0000 (UTC), Ken Smith wrote:

In article <bfpe21hbmiimqh5et2mddbcqb6ae8gja1g@4ax.com>,
Jim Thompson <thegreatone@example.com> wrote:
[...]
I've never been able to figure out why programmers can't write NEW
things instead of bloating old things to beyond usefulness.

They are stupid. Now you know :

Actually I think it is because programming classes spend a billion hours
on coding and five minutes on design. It is easy to add a bunch of stuff
to a program. It is a lot harder to figure out how to make the user
interface more straight forward to use.

The UI is only a small part of "design". The only easy way to do one
other than VB is on Linux 'cause all the UI designers for windows
suck.

The real design part only requires a pencil and paper and a some
thought to distill the internal functioning of the app into
something OO that's easy to upgrade.

--
Best Regards,
Mike

Daniel Haude · Mar 4, 2005

On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 21:58:36 +0100,
martin griffith <martingriffithX@Xyahoo.co.uk> wrote
in Msg. <c89c21pflea4ofnend1s49p434t2loao1k@4ax.com>

I'm think of tidying up (my lack of) procedures in making data sheets
and documentation.

I'd export drawings as EPS and wrap it all up with Latex oder pdfLatex.
You get:

- searchable text
- scalable (non-pixelated) graphics
- small filesize.

I'm also quite comfortable with OpenOffice's pdf export option, but I
haven't done embedded images with OO yet and I don't know how it handles
vector graphics.

Note that EPS (Postscript) is not a vector format but can also contain
pixel graphics. Make sure your layout program exports true vector graphics
to EPS.

--D.

Fred Bartoli · Mar 4, 2005

"John Woodgate" <jmw@jmwa.demon.contraspam.yuk> a écrit dans le message de
news:+EdankAGx2JCFw96@jmwa.demon.co.uk...

I read in sci.electronics.design that Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> wrote (in <bfpe21hbmiimqh5et2mddbcqb6ae8gja1g@
4ax.com&gt about '"Doing" datasheets', on Thu, 3 Mar 2005:
I've never been able to figure out why programmers can't write NEW
things instead of bloating old things to beyond usefulness.

Look what the hardware guys did to the 4004!(;-)

Sure. It was (and still is) a nice diode.
Its successors are much much more leaky, withstands much lower reverse
voltage and have an unbelievable number of strange parasitic behaviours.

Weird.

--
Thanks,
Fred.

Bob Stephens · Mar 4, 2005

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:25:23 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

When I was a kid Yo-Yo's were the in-thing. Yo-Yo champions would
visit the schools and we took a big recess to watch them do their
tricks. Then they'd sell all us suckers a Yo-Yo... IIRC they were
Duncan Yo-Yo's.

Yup. They were still around when I was a kid in Rhode Island. Came around
the schoolyard in a van full of Yo-Yo's. Kind of like today's crack
dealers.

Bob

Jim Thompson · Mar 4, 2005

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:02:52 -0800, John Larkin
<jjSNIPlarkin@highTHISlandPLEASEtechnology.XXX> wrote:

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 19:32:22 -0700, Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> wrote:

Yep, PNG works best if your ultimate aim is a PowerPoint presentation.

Why in the world would that be anybody's ultimate aim? *

http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/

Two of my father's birthdays ago we decided to walk Gettysburg. We
need to do it again. Everyone should be sure to visit there!

John

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

Jim Thompson · Mar 4, 2005

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 01:09:59 -0500, Active8 <reply2group@ndbbm.net>
wrote:

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:28:59 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

[snip]

I use the PDFWriter than accompanies Adobe Acrobat as a virtual
printer... "prints" directly from my schematic capture, and DOES make
searchable text.

I bet it doesn't get searchable text out of Capture I'm not going
to try right now, but I've a hunch.

[snip]

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

John Larkin · Mar 4, 2005

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 11:30:31 +0100, "Fred Bartoli"
<fred._canxxxel_this_bartoli@RemoveThatAlso_free.fr_AndThisToo> wrote:

"John Woodgate" <jmw@jmwa.demon.contraspam.yuk> a écrit dans le message de
news:+EdankAGx2JCFw96@jmwa.demon.co.uk...
I read in sci.electronics.design that Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> wrote (in <bfpe21hbmiimqh5et2mddbcqb6ae8gja1g@
4ax.com&gt about '"Doing" datasheets', on Thu, 3 Mar 2005:
I've never been able to figure out why programmers can't write NEW
things instead of bloating old things to beyond usefulness.

Look what the hardware guys did to the 4004!(;-)

Sure. It was (and still is) a nice diode.
Its successors are much much more leaky, withstands much lower reverse
voltage and have an unbelievable number of strange parasitic behaviours.

Weird.

But the Pentium I chips, the ones in the purplish ceramic package,
make superb x-acto knife sharpeners.

John

gwhite · Mar 4, 2005

Active8 wrote:

I use the PDFWriter than accompanies Adobe Acrobat as a virtual
printer... "prints" directly from my schematic capture, and DOES make
searchable text.

I bet it doesn't get searchable text out of Capture I'm not going
to try right now, but I've a hunch.

Schematic text sourced from Capture is searchable. This is known to be true for
at least Capture Ver 7.x thru 10.x. The text can be sustained because it is not
precision artwork, like gerbers are. Again, the text search "problem" is
pcb/asm docs sourced from the layout source program. It all prints to image.
For pcb/asm -> pdf, you can't find where "R132" is by doing cntl-f. I found a
strange workaround for asm-pdf drawings. I don't know if the solution is worth
the work.

Active8 · Mar 4, 2005

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 16:39:43 GMT, gwhite wrote:

Active8 wrote:

But I have other needs where print-to-GIF would be highly desirable.

Most definitely. Stinkin' pdfs are big.

If you use Distiller, use the job options, and tweak the source file too, you
can often get it to both look good and be reasonable in size.

Since I don't really understand the graphic standards, I have not figured out
how to do it systematically. However, with rather blind trial and error I have
often achieved the "not to big" and "reasonable quality" goal in producing
pdf's. I wish I could say how to do it procedurally -- I can't. I reinvent the
wheel every time since I don't do it frequently enough. I suppose I should
write steps down next time.

I'm going to check out that
thing another poster linked. I bet it'll convert to .pngs, too.
These pngs, would've been over twice the size with gifs.
And no Compuserve!

True, I don't like Compuserve aspect either. MATLAB has never printed directly
to gif, not that it isn't fairly easy to take an extra step or two to get one.

The color of png is certainly better than gif, and it is usually a bit smaller
too. png really seems superior, but I don't know why.

These PNGs are less than half the size of GIFs. I used PSP's PNG
wizard and didn't change any settings:

http://home.earthlink.net/~mcolasono/tmp/fd-crack.png
http://home.earthlink.net/~mcolasono/tmp/2pi.png

--
Best Regards,
Mike

budgie · Mar 5, 2005

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 01:09:59 -0500, Active8 <reply2group@ndbbm.net> wrote:

Most definitely. Stinkin' pdfs are big.

I guess it's all relative. I use a PDF generator called PDFCreator which
installs as a virtual printer - I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread.

Recently I had occasion to "clean up" a third generation photocopy of a service
manual, comprising 5 A4 pages of text and one A4 schematic. The text went
through OCR to Word. I scanned the schematic and the raw output (600dpi, 1bpp)
was 3970kb. I trimmed the scan to the Word margins and pasted it in as page 6.
The entire Word document (as a .doc file) is 4025kb. "Printed" to a .PDF file,
it is 145kb. And that schematic came out *mint*, free of staircasing and all.
I was VERY impressed. You're welcome to a copy ;-)

Sorry for the long post but It's the only way the numbers tell the story.

Paul Hovnanian P.E. · Mar 4, 2005

Rich Grise wrote:

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:24:14 -0800, Paul Hovnanian P.E. wrote:

While we're on this topic, are there any industry wide attempts to
develop an XML schema for component data sheets?

Theoretically, this would make putting component data into databases,
making it easily searchable on various parameters, etc.

In practice, it would make for some interesting fights between various
vendors and other interested parties which could provide us all with
months of entertainment.

Just take a spice file or whatever, and write it in xml. Should be
easy.

The idea behind having an industry standard schema (structure and
tag/attribute names) is that everybody's datasheets can be imported into
applications. Apps like spice, parts databases, or inventory
applications can just 'drop in' any component if they are written to
import a standard schema.

--
Paul Hovnanian mailto

aul@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
Happily doing the work of 3 Men ... Moe, Larry & Curly

"Doing" datasheets

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