Print Graph AIM 4170

[bill]

Hi All,

One of the most useful features of the 4170 is the ability to print a scan for referance, and to apend notes to.
So far I have only been able to print a graph 3" x 5.5" into the top left corner of a A4 sheet.

Is it possible to configure a print out to say, a graph full size on a Letter or A4 size of paper.

Regards

Bill

[bill]

Hi all, I am suprised that after 23 reads there has been no response, and I am wondering if this means no solution.

Regards

Bill

[w0qe]

Bill,

Let's break your problem down into a few parts:

1.) Any AIM4170 (or VNA2180) screen can be captured in several ways. Bob has included a "File, SaveBitImageMap" command to save the screen shot to a windows .bmp file. There are several windows screen capture programs that can also be used (I use Snagit) but everything essentially works the same. You end up with a bit image file that contains the number of pixels that were on the screen in some format. The .gif and .png formats are probably the best choioces since they are readable by virtually every program, are lossless, well compressed, and perfect for a limited number of colors. I generally use .png as it is very pervasive on the web and the resulting file size is about 20k bytes. The default 4170 screen size is now 950 by 600 but the size can be changed in the config file along with the font size to give you more/less resolution if desired.

2.) Can you print other bit image (.bmp, .gif, .png, etc.) files at arbitrary sizes? If not, the problem is not a 4170 issue. It sounds as if you are printing at a scale of 1 image pixel to 1 printer dot (300 DPI printer) which is fine but results in a small image. Scaling up the image size will NOT get you any more resolution but it will give you a bigger image which may be all you need. In a program such a MSWord just drag the corner of the image to change the size.

3.) What program are you using to print the image? The printing routines for most of the built in image viewers in WinXP, Vista, and Win7 allow scaling the image size at print time.

Does this help?

73,
Larry, W0QE

[Bob]

The final size of the printed image is determined by the printer scale factor. Also the orientation (portrait or landscape) can be selected with the printer setup options.

73/Bob

[bill]

Hi All,and many thanks for the repiles, I have tried both sugestions with improved print results.
Changing the paper format from Letter to A4 helped, also Orientation change helped.
I had expected a print Setup within the AIM setup features, which could be set to a default, and wondered why I could not find it in the menu's.

Regards

Bill

[g3rep]

Hi
I went through the same aggro to start with. I was thinking I might need to do a screen dump which needs cropping etc, then found this in the Help section
>>
Save Image BitMap - Save the scan display as a bitmap file (*.bmp). The menu items at the top of the screen and the buttons at the bottom of the screen are not included in the saved image.

To transfer a scan display to a written document or a picture process program, you can copy it to the clipboard first by pressing Alt-PrintScreen (on some computers it may be necessary to also press a special function key to activate the PrintScreen key). Then go to the document and press Control-V to copy the image to the document.
>>

The above does not cover printing so I pasted into into MS Paint and did a print although I had to scale it 140% for the A4 print. Works a treat.
I will try the same with ACDSee as there I can put a label on the page as well. I am sure you could probably do this with most imaging software.

73s
Bob
G3REP

[Bob]

Hi Bob,
The printer software usually includes a dialog to scale the picture and select the orientation (portrait or landscape). For a full page image, landscape gives the largest print.

The "Comment" button at the bottom of the graph can be used to enter a title and and some technical information about the scan.

-- 73/Bob