Plotter Configuration

Located in the gdsplot/bin/igdsplot directory is a file called "igdsplot.cfg". This file controls which plotter a user wishes to print to. It also stores the page size, DPI, rotation, and other pertinent information.

If the user has several plotters/printers on a network, or even one but wishes to change settings periodically, (for example switching between 300 and 600 DPI), they can create several plot.cfg files. Each one will have a unique name and each will have different defaults.

Example 1

If for example, you wish to make two .cfg files, one for 300 DPI and one for 600 DPI, create a plot.cfg with 300dpi through the interface (or xgdsplot) and rename it to plot300.cfg.

Now change the settings to 600dpi and save a new plot.cfg with this value. Rename it to plot600.cfg . Place both files in the gdsplot/bin directory.

The file below will show you 2 plotters in the interface and you can choose one of them. You need to create each one of them and make sure they are in the specified directory.

Here is a sample igdsplot.cfg file with several available printers. At the bottom, the two settings for 300 and 600 can be seen under the hp2500 printer.

# iGDSPLOT Plotter Configuration file
# Format is plot_cfg_name plot_cfg_path
# Eg. My Configuration /SUN1/cad/plotcfgs/plot1.cfg
hp750c /tools/gdsplot/bin/hp750.cfg
hp4550 /tools/gdsplot/bin/hp4550.cfg
hp4050 /tools/gdsplot/bin/hp4050.cfg
hp2500_300dpi /tools/gdsplot/bin/plot300.cfg
hp2500_600dpi /tools/gdsplot/bin/plot600.cfg

This feature allows the user to select a preset plot.cfg so they will not have to continually change the page size, plotter type, DPI etc. It will be stored in a set of .cfg files and there can be as many as needed.

Example 2

What if a network has three printers on it. Instead of constantly changing the Plotter Setup everytime the user wishes to change to a different printer, all three can be included and saved with it’s own settings in the igdsplot.cfg file.

The file below will show you 3 plotters in the interface and you can choose one of them. You need to create each one of them and make sure they are in the specified directory.

Since we created a plot.cfg file that works well with the 750c plotter, you can copy it to the bin directory as "hp750.cfg" for example.

For the HP Laser printers you need to do the following: In the Cadence interface go to the plotter setup and :

a. Set the page size to A size.
b. Set the driver to PSII instead of RTL (postscript level II raster).
c. Set the proper plotter name on the command line "cat %s | lp -d plotter_name"

This will create a new plot.cfg that you will copy to the bin directory under the proper name.

You can do the same procedure for as many printers/plotters as you want.

Here is a sample igdsplot.cfg file with several printers and their corresponding .cfg.

# iGDSPLOT Plotter Configuration file
# Format is plot_cfg_name plot_cfg_path
# Eg. My Configuration /SUN1/cad/plotcfgs/plot1.cfg
hp750c /tools/gdsplot/bin/hp750.cfg
hp4550 /tools/gdsplot/bin/hp4550.cfg
hp4050 /tools/gdsplot/bin/hp4050.cfg