TCL(Tool Command Language) Scripting :: how to produce publishing quality documentation from drawing


	how to produce publishing quality documentation from drawing Hello, How would one generate publishing quality documentation outputs from a program that draws like block diagrams using Tk? I know you can generate postscript files but I need a solution that can be displayed and printed from MS Word ( yuck ). The only thing I can think of is to generate high resolution image files but I'm not sure that is the right thing to do. Thanks in advance. DJF chewie54 wrote: > Hello, > How would one generate publishing quality documentation outputs from a > program that draws like block diagrams using Tk? > I know you can generate postscript files but I need a solution that > can be displayed and printed from MS Word ( yuck ). The only thing I > can think of is to generate high resolution image files but I'm not > sure that is the right thing to do. You can run the postscript through GhostScript to convert it to a variety of formats. Perhaps one of those will do? I'm quite surprised that Word can't handle encapsulated postscript, though. -- Neil chewie54 wrote: > Hello, > How would one generate publishing quality documentation outputs from a > program that draws like block diagrams using Tk? > I know you can generate postscript files but I need a solution that > can be displayed and printed from MS Word ( yuck ). The only thing I > can think of is to generate high resolution image files but I'm not > sure that is the right thing to do. > Thanks in advance. > DJF There is an extension called ratfink that can generate RTF. I had a modicum of success using it quite some time ago. There's also the commercial "pdflib" which can be used to create PDFs. Word, though, can't read PDF (can it?). There was also something called "trampoline!" that promised to take a canvas and convert it to PDF, but I personally didn't have much luck with it. Neither one is smart enough to take a canvas or text widget or whatever and automagically create the document. ratfink: http://www.flightlab.com/cost/ratfink/ratfink.html -- Bryan Oakley http://www.tclscripting.com > There's also the commercial "pdflib" which can be used to create PDFs. > Word, though, can't read PDF (can it?). There was also something called > "trampoline!" that promised to take a canvas and convert it to PDF, but > I personally didn't have much luck with it. Neither did I have luck with "trampoline!", but I have created charts with "pdf4tcl": http://truckle.in-chemnitz.de/pdf4tcl/pdf4tcl.html I had no problems with this library, which is free, open-source, and does not require a compiler to run, as it is written in pure-tcl. My charts were very simple, but they contain some text. "pdf4tcl" provides basic functionalities, but it is reliable. Good Luck Cheers, Stphane A. On May 19, 1:46 am, Stphane A. <stephanearn@yahoo.fr> wrote: - Hide quoted text - > > There's also the commercial "pdflib" which can be used to create PDFs. > > Word, though, can't read PDF (can it?). There was also something called > > "trampoline!" that promised to take a canvas and convert it to PDF, but > > I personally didn't have much luck with it. > Neither did I have luck with "trampoline!", but I have created charts > with "pdf4tcl":http://truckle.in-chemnitz.de/pdf4tcl/pdf4tcl.html > I had no problems with this library, which is free, open-source, > and does not require a compiler to run, as it is written in pure-tcl. > My charts were very simple, but they contain some text. > "pdf4tcl" provides basic functionalities, but it is reliable. > Good Luck > Cheers, > Stphane A. This looks like a good solution for pdf documents. Its to bad Word doesn't display pdf graphics. That would simplify things for me. Even postscript or encapsulated post script would be great but MS Word doesn't seem to want to display these formats but does print them. I did look around for graphic filters for Word but didn't find any. Thanks for your advice. Dan On May 18, 10:10 am, Neil Madden <n@cs.nott.ac.uk> wrote: - Hide quoted text - > chewie54 wrote: > > Hello, > > How would one generate publishing quality documentation outputs from a > > program that draws like block diagrams using Tk? > > I know you can generate postscript files but I need a solution that > > can be displayed and printed from MS Word ( yuck ). The only thing I > > can think of is to generate high resolution image files but I'm not > > sure that is the right thing to do. > You can run the postscript through GhostScript to convert it to a > variety of formats. Perhaps one of those will do? I'm quite surprised > that Word can't handle encapsulated postscript, though. > -- Neil GhostScript, I didn't know that. That might be a way to get what I want. Thank you. Dan chewie54 wrote: > I did look around for graphic filters for Word but didn't find any. I believe Visio will do the conversion. But I don't have a copy of it so I can't confirm. Donal. On May 21, 6:04 pm, "Donal K. Fellows" <donal.k.fell@man.ac.uk> wrote: > chewie54 wrote: > > I did look around for graphic filters for Word but didn't find any. > I believe Visio will do the conversion. But I don't have a copy of it > so I can't confirm. > Donal. But I think the problem is that Visio saves it at the display resolution. I need to save it as a 300 or 600 DPI image so it looks and prints like a high resolution quality picture in MS Word. Ghostscript does all the user to change the DPI settings for the image. The problem I think then is that is not scalable but this is the best you do in Word. It would be great if Word displayed and printed some scalable vector drawing format like pdf, ps, eps. I'm really trying to come up with a good way of technical documentation using Word that includes lots of block and timing diagrams for chip specifications. All thoughts on this subject are welcome and appreciated. Thanks, Dan chewie54 wrote: > The problem I think then is that is not scalable but this is the best > you do in Word. It would be great if Word displayed and printed some > scalable vector drawing format like pdf, ps, eps. > I'm really trying to come up with a good way of technical > documentation using Word that includes lots of block and timing > diagrams for chip specifications. > All thoughts on this subject are welcome and appreciated. It's horrible - but the best answer that I can come up with off the top of my head is to use the wmf extension (http://www.schwartzcomputer.com/tcl-tk/tcl-tk.html - look for 'wmf') to open a graphic context on a Windows metafile, then use the 'gdi' extension on the same page to draw into it. If you wanted to get really ambitious, you could drive the thing by walking the display list of a canvas. If you do take that on, please post the code somewhere - lots of the rest of us could use it! -- 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin On 22 mei, 05:46, Kevin Kenny <kenn@acm.org> wrote: - Hide quoted text - > chewie54 wrote: > > The problem I think then is that is not scalable but this is the best > > you do in Word. It would be great if Word displayed and printed some > > scalable vector drawing format like pdf, ps, eps. > > I'm really trying to come up with a good way of technical > > documentation using Word that includes lots of block and timing > > diagrams for chip specifications. > > All thoughts on this subject are welcome and appreciated. > It's horrible - but the best answer that I can come up with off > the top of my head is to use the wmf extension > (http://www.schwartzcomputer.com/tcl-tk/tcl-tk.html- look for > 'wmf') to open a graphic context on a Windows metafile, > then use the 'gdi' extension on the same page to draw into > it. > If you wanted to get really ambitious, you could drive the > thing by walking thedisplaylistof a canvas. If you do > take that on, please post the code somewhere - lots of > the rest of us could use it! An easy way to walk the display list is: foreach item [$canvas find all] { ... get the properties of item $item ... ... do whatever is needed ... } [$canvas find all] returns the indices of the displayed items from the lowest to the highest. (I do not know if this is actually guaranteed, but in experiments it turns out to be the case) Regards, Arjen Arjen Markus wrote: > [$canvas find all] returns the indices of the displayed items > from the lowest to the highest. (I do not know if this is > actually guaranteed, but in experiments it turns out to be the > case) Actually, it's from from upper-most (in Z-order) down. Guaranteed. Donal.