Postscript Expert?

Is there any process whereby I can change the color of the graphic elements of a Postscript file, without changing the color of the text (black)?

Object: PSpice can't show more than one Performance Analysis at a time (only one variable), so I resort to superimposing Postscript files of Performance Analyses (at different temperatures for example).

I'd like to color each temperature run differently.

Any way to do that?

Thanks!

...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson
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Good idea, Paul! I do have several software-based 'printers' that can output GIF, etc.

Maybe manipulate in GIF, then 'print to' PS or PDF and then merge.

In this biz, it's 'all in the showmanship' ;-)

The circuit design is (usually) easy, the presentation convincing the client that it really works is difficult.

...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

It depends on how the graphical data and text have been encoded into the file.

I suspect that its all a big bitmap, where each pixel (set to other than the background color) is explicitly defined by a coordinate and RGB value. In this case, good luck separating the text from the graph. Open one up with a text editor and see if the text is stored as separate text strings. If the text is easily identifiable, it may be possible to hand edit the color attributes of the graphical elements and then set the text bits back to black.

If its all bits, your best bet might be to convert the Postscript files into a format easily manipulated, clip out the graph data from each, change its color and paste them all on top of one image with the axis, labels and other text intact. This would be particularly handy if you want to automate the process and the source graphs are all of the same size.

For such tools, take a look at

formatting link

(some more of that Commie freeware ;-)).

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Paul Hovnanian P.E.

If the traces are colored at all, look through the postscript file for "setrgbcolor". It's likely in a macro definition:

/foo { ... setrgbcolor ... } def

in which case you'd look for "foo" instead. Otherwise somewhere you'll see something like:

0.5 0.67 1.0 setrgbcolor

that's what you change. You might have setcmykcolor instead, which takes four operands.

If the graph lines are black, look for "setgray" instead.

Reply to
DJ Delorie

Use something else to plot the output (gnuplot? excell?)

I suspect the graphs are vector images in which case you could a vector graphics editor: eg: inkscape, corel draw,

Reply to
Jasen Betts

The latest beta version of Inkscape also lets you edit postscript files.

Reply to
acfang

My client in Australia advises that Corel Draw can edit PDF files and change colors.

Does anyone have a comparison between the full Corel X4 package and the "Home" edition... besides the 4:1 price difference ?:-)

...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

Crapola\\ :-( Just like me to overlook the obvious. In PSpice Probe, right-click a trace symbol, and change its color _before_ "printing" to Postscript and merging

...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

Hi Jim,

My favorite vector graphics editor is "Inkscape". I just tried it on a PDF, and it works beautifully! You can load a PDF, arbitrarily edit the text and graphics, and save again as PDF. (It's kind of worrying how easy this is to do, since many people regard PDF as a format that is "uneditable" in practice).

I just used it to "colour in" a scanned pencil sketch pdf!

I use it on debian (linux) but there are windows releases too.

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John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux

Thanks, John! I'll look it up.

I keep a v4 of Adobe Acrobat around... it can do many editing tricks _easily_ that v7 can't :-( I think Adobe is a very close second to Microsoft for selling pure shitty software.

...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

You can mark it so that it is un-editable.

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Best Regards:
                     Baron.
Reply to
Baron

But, is that just a flag that editors are free to ignore? Like most viewers I have ignore the "can't print" and "can't save" flags AFAIK.

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John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux

Good question ! I've never bothered to find out. :-(

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Best Regards:
                     Baron.
Reply to
Baron

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