ploticus: making paper-based output

## making paper-based output | Welcome Gallery Handbook |
| Manual page for making_paper-based_output(PL)

## PAPER-BASED REPORTS

Paper continues to play an essential role for meeting materials and reports.`` Fortunately, ploticus can create attractive data displays on paper, using vector graphics and PoscScript fonts, and control over page layout and pagination.``

## PRE-PRESS WORK

This is discussed here.``

## SUPPORTED PRINTER LANGUAGES

Ploticus can generate paginated PostScript or Encapsulated PostScript (EPS).`` Use the `-ps` command line option to get paginated PostScript; use `-eps` for EPS.`` Paginated PostScript may be sent directly to printers and may contain multiple pages. EPS generally contains one picture or figure; it may be printed directly or it may be imported by other software applications.``

## IMAGE IMPORT

Another way to work is to create PNG, SVG , or GIF files with ploticus, and import these into your document.``

## CONSIDERATIONS

Here are some issues that come into play with paper-based reports:

- Color: paper-based reports must often must be in monochrome due to photocopying limitations. A background color of white gives the best results.`` Printers convert colors to grays but results may not be quite what you would expect.`` Foreground and background colors may be controlled from proc page or from the command line.`` When creating EPS, the default background is `transparent`.``
- Fonts: PostScript and SVG fonts are more attractive than with the other output formats. Style variations such as bold and italic, as well as a wider range of sizes are available. A wide array of symbols are also available under PostScript as well, and can be accessed using special character codes .``
- When printing results directly, graphs may need to be layed out properly with respect to standard-sized sheets of paper.`` Proc areadef includes several different methods for specifying layout geometry.``
- Paper orientation is the way the paper is held. Paper may be portrait (tall) or landscape (oblong). Orientation may be set in proc page or on the command line.``
- Pagination - a single script file may generate multiple pages of results.`` In pl, proc page is used to specify a page break.``
  data display engine
  Copyright Steve Grubb

Markup created by unroff 1.0, `` `` December 10, 2002.