1TEK2PLOT(1) GNU Plotting Utilities TEK2PLOT(1)
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6 tek2plot - translate Tektronix files to other graphics formats
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9 tek2plot [ options ] [ files ]
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12 tek2plot translates Tektronix graphics files to other formats, or dis‐
13 plays them on an X Window System display. The output format is speci‐
14 fied with the -T option. The possible output formats are the same as
15 those supported by graph(1), plot(1), pic2plot(1), and plotfont(1). If
16 an output file is produced, it is written to standard output.
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18 Options and file names may be interspersed on the command line, but the
19 options are processed before the file names are read. If -- is seen,
20 it is interpreted as the end of the options. If no file names are
21 specified, or the file name - is encountered, the standard input is
22 read.
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25 General Options
26 -T type
27 --output-format type
28 Select type as the output format. It may be "X", "png", "pnm",
29 "gif", "svg", "ai", "ps", "cgm", "fig", "pcl", "hpgl", "regis",
30 "tek", or "meta" (the default). These refer respectively to the
31 X Window System, PNG (Portable Network Graphics) format, porta‐
32 ble anymap format (PBM/PGM/PPM), a pseudo-GIF format that does
33 not use LZW encoding, the new XML-based Scalable Vector Graphics
34 format, the format used by Adobe Illustrator, Postscript or
35 Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) that can be edited with idraw(1),
36 CGM format (by default, confirming to the WebCGM profile), the
37 format used by the xfig(1) drawing editor, the Hewlett-Packard
38 PCL 5 printer language, the Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language,
39 ReGIS graphics format (which can be displayed by the dxterm(1)
40 terminal emulator or by a VT330 or VT340 terminal), Tektronix
41 format itself, and device-independent GNU metafile format.
42 Unless type is "X", an output file is produced and written to
43 standard output.
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45 Omitting the -T option is equivalent to specifying -T meta. GNU
46 metafile format may be translated to other formats with plot(1).
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48 -p n
49 --page-number n
50 Output only page number n, within the Tektronix file or sequence
51 of Tektronix files that is being translated. n must be a non-
52 negative integer, since a Tektronix file may consist of one or
53 more pages, numbered beginning with zero.
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55 The default behavior if the -p option is not used is to output
56 all nonempty pages in succession. For example, tek2plot -T X
57 displays each Tektronix page in its own X window. If the -T
58 png, -T pnm, -T gif, -T ai, or -T fig option is used, the
59 default behavior is to output only the first nonempty Tektronix
60 page, since files in those output formats contain only a single
61 page of graphics.
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63 Most Tektronix files consist of either one page (page #0) or two
64 pages (an empty page #0, and page #1). Tektronix files produced
65 by the GNU plotting utilities (e.g., by graph -T tek) are nor‐
66 mally of the latter sort.
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68 -F name
69 --font-name name
70 Use the font name for rendering the native Textronix fonts, if
71 it is available. The default font is "Courier" except for
72 tek2plot -T png, tek2plot -T pnm, tek2plot -T gif, tek2plot -T
73 hpgl, tek2plot -T regis, and tek2plot -T tek, for which it is
74 "HersheySerif". A list of available fonts can be obtained with
75 the --help-fonts option (see below). If a font outside the
76 Courier family is used, the --position-chars option (see below)
77 should probably be specified.
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79 The -F option is useful only if you have a Tektronix file that
80 draws text using native Tektronix fonts. Tektronix files pro‐
81 duced by the GNU plotting utilities (e.g., by graph -T tek) do
82 not use native Tektronix fonts: they use Hershey vector fonts
83 instead.
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85 -W line_width
86 --line-width line_width
87 Set the width of lines, as a fraction of the width of the dis‐
88 play, to be line_width. A negative value means that a default
89 value should be used. This value is format-dependent. The
90 interpretation of zero line width is also format-dependent (in
91 some output formats, a zero-width line is the thinnest line that
92 can be drawn; in others, a zero-width line is invisible).
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94 --bg-color name
95 Set the color used for the background to be name. This is rele‐
96 vant only to tek2plot -T X, tek2plot -T png, tek2plot -T pnm,
97 tek2plot -T gif, tek2plot -T svg, tek2plot -T cgm, and tek2plot
98 -T regis. An unrecognized name sets the color to the default,
99 which is "white". The environment variable BG_COLOR can equally
100 well be used to specify the background color. If the -T svg or
101 -T cgm option is used, an output file without a background may
102 be produced by setting the background color to "none".
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104 If the -T png or -T gif option is used, a transparent PNG file
105 or a transparent pseudo-GIF, respectively, may be produced by
106 setting the TRANSPARENT_COLOR environment variable to the name
107 of the background color.
108
109 --bitmap-size bitmap_size
110 Set the size of the graphics display in which the plot will be
111 drawn, in terms of pixels, to be bitmap_size. The default is
112 "570x570". This is relevant only to plot -T X, plot -T png,
113 plot -T pnm, and plot -T gif. If you choose a rectangular (non-
114 square) window size, the fonts in the plot will be scaled aniso‐
115 tropically, i.e., by different factors in the horizontal and
116 vertical directions. For plot -T X, this requires an X11R6 dis‐
117 play. Any font that cannot be scaled in this way will be
118 replaced by a default scalable font, such as the vector font
119 "HersheySerif".
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121 The environment variable BITMAPSIZE can equally well be used to
122 specify the window size. For backward compatibility, the X
123 resource Xplot.geometry may be used instead.
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125 --emulate-color option
126 If option is yes, replace each color in the output by an appro‐
127 priate shade of gray. This is seldom useful, except when using
128 ` tek2plot -T pcl to prepare output for a PCL 5 device. (Many
129 monochrome PCL 5 devices, such as monochrome LaserJets, do a
130 poor job of emulating color on their own.) You may equally well
131 request color emulation by setting the environment variable EMU‐
132 LATE_COLOR to "yes".
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134 --max-line-length max_line_length
135 Set the maximum number of points that a polygonal line may con‐
136 tain, before it is flushed out, to be max_line_length. If this
137 flushing occurs, the polygonal line will be split into two or
138 more sub-lines, though the splitting should not be noticeable.
139 The default value of max_line_length is 500.
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141 The reason for splitting long polygonal lines is that some dis‐
142 play devices (e.g., old Postscript printers and HP-GL pen plot‐
143 ters) have limited buffer sizes. The environment variable
144 MAX_LINE_LENGTH can also be used to specify the maximum line
145 length.
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147 --page-size pagesize
148 Set the size of the page on which the plot will be positioned.
149 This is relevant only to tek2plot -T svg, tek2plot -T ai,
150 tek2plot -T ps, tek2plot -T cgm, tek2plot -T fig, tek2plot -T
151 pcl, and tek2plot -T hpgl. The default is "letter", which means
152 an 8.5 inch by 11 inch page. Any ISO page size in the range
153 "a0"..."a4" or ANSI page size in the range "a"..."e" may be
154 specified ("letter" is an alias for "a" and "tabloid" is an
155 alias for "b"). "legal" and "ledger" are recognized page sizes
156 also. The environment variable PAGESIZE can equally well be
157 used to specify the page size.
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159 The graphics display in which the plot is drawn will be a square
160 region that would occupy nearly the full width of the specified
161 page. An alternative size for the graphics display can be spec‐
162 ified. For example, the page size could be specified as "let‐
163 ter,xsize=4in,ysize=6in", or "a4,xsize=5.0cm,ysize=100mm". For
164 all of the above except tek2plot -T hpgl, the graphics display
165 will, by default, be centered on the page. For all of the above
166 except tek2plot -T svg and tek2plot -T cgm, the graphics display
167 may be repositioned manually, by specifying the location of its
168 lower left corner, relative to the lower left corner of the
169 page. For example, the page size could be specified as "let‐
170 ter,xorigin=2in,yorigin=3in", or "a4,xorigin=0.5cm,yori‐
171 gin=0.5cm". It is also possible to specify an offset vector.
172 For example, the page size could be specified as "letter,xoff‐
173 set=1in", or "letter,xoffset=1in,yoffset=1.2in", or "a4,yoff‐
174 set=-1cm". In SVG format and WebCGM format it is possible to
175 specify the size of the graphics display, but not its position.
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177 --pen-color name
178 Set the pen color to be name. An unrecognized name sets the pen
179 color to the default, which is "black".
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181 --position-chars
182 Position the characters in each text string individually. If
183 the text font is not a member of the Courier family, and espe‐
184 cially if it is not a fixed-width font, this option is recom‐
185 mended. It will improve the appearance of text strings, at the
186 price of making it difficult to edit the output file with
187 xfig(1), idraw(1), or Illustrator.
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189 --rotation angle
190 Rotate the graphics display by angle degrees. Recognized values
191 are "0", "90", "180", and "270". "no" and "yes" are equivalent
192 to "0" and "90", respectively. The environment variable ROTA‐
193 TION can also be used to specify a rotation angle.
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195 --use-tek-fonts
196 Use the bitmap fonts that were used on the original Tektronix
197 4010/4014 terminal. This option is relevant only to tek2plot -T
198 X. The four relevant bitmap fonts are distributed with most
199 versions of the GNU plotting utilities, under the names "tek‐
200 font0"..."tekfont3". They can easily be installed on any modern
201 X Window System display. For this option to work properly, you
202 must also select a window size of 1024x1024 pixels, either by
203 using the --bitmap-size 1024x1024 option or by setting the value
204 of the Xplot.geometry resource. This is because bitmap fonts,
205 unlike the scalable fonts that tek2plot normally uses, cannot be
206 rescaled.
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208 This option is useful only if you have a file in Tektronix for‐
209 mat that draws text using native Tektronix fonts. Tektronix
210 files produced by the GNU plotting utilities (e.g., by graph -T
211 tek) do not use native Tektronix fonts: they use Hershey vector
212 fonts instead.
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214 Options for Metafile Output
215 The following option is relevant only if the -T option is omitted or if
216 -T meta is used. In this case tek2plot outputs a GNU graphics
217 metafile, which must be translated to other formats with plot(1).
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219 -O
220 --portable-output
221 Output the portable (human-readable) version of GNU metafile
222 format, rather than a binary version (the default). The format
223 of the binary version is machine-dependent.
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225 Informational Options
226 --help Print a list of command-line options, and exit.
227
228 --help-fonts
229 Print a table of available fonts, and exit. The table will
230 depend on which output format is specified with the -T option.
231 tek2plot -T X, tek2plot -T svg, tek2plot -T ai, tek2plot -T ps,
232 tek2plot -T cgm, and tek2plot -T fig each support the 35 stan‐
233 dard Postscript fonts. tek2plot -T svg, tek2plot -T pcl, and
234 tek2plot -T hpgl support the 45 standard PCL 5 fonts, and the
235 latter two support a number of Hewlett-Packard vector fonts.
236 All seven support a set of 22 Hershey vector fonts, as do
237 tek2plot -T png, tek2plot -T pnm, tek2plot -T gif, tek2plot -T
238 regis, and tek2plot -T tek. tek2plot without a -T option in
239 principle supports any of these fonts, since its output must be
240 translated to other formats with plot(1).
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242 The plotfont(1) utility may be used to obtain a character map of
243 any supported font.
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245 --list-fonts
246 Like --help-fonts, but lists the fonts in a single column to
247 facilitate piping to other programs. If no output format is
248 specified with the -T option, the full set of supported fonts is
249 listed.
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251 --version
252 Print the version number of tek2plot and the plotting utilities
253 package, and exit.
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256 The environment variables BITMAPSIZE, PAGESIZE, BG_COLOR, EMU‐
257 LATE_COLOR, MAX_LINE_LENGTH and ROTATION serve as backups for the
258 options --bitmap-size, --page-size, --bg-color, --emulate-color,
259 --max-line-length, and --rotation, respectively. The remaining envi‐
260 ronment variables are specific to individual output formats.
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262 tek2plot -T X, which pops up a window on an X Window System display and
263 draws graphics in it, checks the DISPLAY environment variable. Its
264 value determines the display that will be used.
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266 tek2plot -T png and tek2plot -T gif, which produce output in PNG format
267 and pseudo-GIF format respectively, are affected by the INTERLACE envi‐
268 ronment variable. If its value is "yes", the output will be inter‐
269 laced. Also, if the TRANSPARENT_COLOR environment variable is set to
270 the name of a color, that color will be treated as transparent in the
271 output.
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273 tek2plot -T pnm, which produces output in portable anymap (PBM/PGM/PPM)
274 format, is affected by the PNM_PORTABLE environment variable. If its
275 value is "yes", the output will be in a human-readable format rather
276 than binary (the default).
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278 tek2plot -T cgm, which produces output in CGM (Computer Graphics
279 Metafile) format, is affected by the CGM_MAX_VERSION and CGM_ENCODING
280 environment variables. By default, it produces a binary-encoded ver‐
281 sion of CGM version 3 format. For backward compatibility, the version
282 number may be reduced by setting CGM_MAX_VERSION to "2" or "1". Irre‐
283 spective of version, the output CGM file will use the human-readable
284 clear text encoding if CGM_ENCODING is set to "clear_text". However,
285 only binary-encoded CGM files conform to the WebCGM profile.
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287 tek2plot -T pcl, which produces PCL 5 output for Hewlett-Packard print‐
288 ers and plotters, is affected by the environment variable
289 PCL_ASSIGN_COLORS. It should be set to "yes" when producing PCL 5 out‐
290 put for a color printer or other color device. This will ensure accu‐
291 rate color reproduction by giving the output device complete freedom in
292 assigning colors, internally, to its "logical pens". If it is "no"
293 then the device will use a fixed set of colored pens, and will emulate
294 other colors by shading. The default is "no" because monochrome PCL 5
295 devices, which are much more common than colored ones, must use shading
296 to emulate color.
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298 tek2plot -T hpgl, which produces Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language out‐
299 put, is affected by several environment variables. The most important
300 is HPGL_VERSION, which may be set to "1", "1.5", or "2" (the default).
301 "1" means that the output should be generic HP-GL, "1.5" means that the
302 output should be suitable for the HP7550A graphics plotter and the
303 HP758x, HP7595A and HP7596A drafting plotters (HP-GL with some HP-GL/2
304 extensions), and "2" means that the output should be modern HP-GL/2.
305 If the version is "1" or "1.5" then the only available fonts will be
306 vector fonts, and all lines will be drawn with a default width (the -W
307 option will not work).
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309 The position of the tek2plot -T hpgl graphics display on the page can
310 be rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise by setting the HPGL_ROTATE envi‐
311 ronment variable to "yes". This is not the same as the rotation
312 obtained with the --rotation option, since it both rotates the graphics
313 display and repositions its lower left corner toward another corner of
314 the page. Besides "no" and "yes", recognized values for HPGL_ROTATE
315 are "0", "90", "180", and "270". "no" and "yes" are equivalent to "0"
316 and "90", respectively. "180" and "270" are supported only if
317 HPGL_VERSION is "2" (the default).
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319 By default, tek2plot -T hpgl will draw with a fixed set of pens. Which
320 pens are present may be specified by setting the HPGL_PENS environment
321 variable. If HPGL_VERSION is "1", the default value of HPGL_PENS is
322 "1=black"; if HPGL_VERSION is "1.5" or "2", the default value of
323 HPGL_PENS is "1=black:2=red:3=green:4=yellow:5=blue:6=magenta:7=cyan".
324 The format should be self-explanatory. By setting HPGL_PENS you may
325 specify a color for any pen in the range #1...#31. All color names
326 recognized by the X Window System may be used. Pen #1 must always be
327 present, though it need not be black. Any other pen in the range
328 #1...#31 may be omitted.
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330 If HPGL_VERSION is "2" then tek2plot -T hpgl will also be affected by
331 the environment variable HPGL_ASSIGN_COLORS. If its value is "yes",
332 then tek2plot -T hpgl will not be restricted to the palette specified
333 in HPGL_PENS: it will assign colors to "logical pens" in the range
334 #1...#31, as needed. The default value is "no" because other than
335 color LaserJet printers and DesignJet plotters, not many HP-GL/2
336 devices allow the assignment of colors to logical pens.
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338 The drawing of visible white lines is supported only if HPGL_VERSION is
339 "2" and the environment variable HPGL_OPAQUE_MODE is "yes" (the
340 default). If its value is "no" then white lines (if any), which are
341 normally drawn with pen #0, will not be drawn. This feature is to
342 accommodate older HP-GL/2 devices. HP-GL/2 pen plotters, for example,
343 do not support the use of pen #0 to draw visible white lines. Some
344 older HP-GL/2 devices may, in fact, malfunction if asked to draw opaque
345 objects.
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348 plot(1), plotfont(1), and "The GNU Plotting Utilities Manual".
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351 tek2plot was written by Robert S. Maier (rsm@math.arizona.edu). It
352 incorporates a Tektronix parser written by Edward Moy
353 (moy@parc.xerox.com).
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356 Email bug reports to bug-gnu-utils@gnu.org.
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360FSF Jun 2000 TEK2PLOT(1)