Mr Price Thanks for the reminder, I had forgotten that the HP graphics language had an Office filter. Good quick and dirty solution. But, I believe that the raw test data, not image data, should be archived. Image file data is "volatile" and frequently is not portable across different versions, platforms, etc.
It is difficult to beat the simplicity and reliability of an ASCII text file, in engineering units, with a CRC appended. luck, Brian -----Original Message----- From: Price, Ed [ mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 7:00 AM To: 'Neil Helsby'; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: HP (Agilent) 85869PC software Neil: There IS a way to make things easier! After you complete an acquisition scan, the 85869 allows you to several data options. If I'm only doing investigatory work, I usually PRINT a copy to the parallel port Windows inkjet printer. For more formal tests, I also archive a copy of the plot to the internal hard drive using PLOT & PLOT TO FILE. When your test is done, or maybe at the end of a day, you can use Windows Explorer to drag a copy of those files to you Drive A (the 3.5 floppy). True, these files have an extension of HGL, but they handle just like any other data file. OK, now take this floppy, via sneakernet, to your office machine (doubtless equipped with Win XP, Office 2003 Pro, a 4 GHz Athlon, 768 MB of RAM, 80 GB HD, a pair of CD burners & $800 worth of audio and video goodies). Now, copy those files into your project folder. And now, the magic. You need to add a "filter" to your copy of MS Word. This tiny patch, called "HPGL.EXE" is available free from the MS Office site (or email me for a zipped copy). You do a one-time extraction & installation (instructions included), and you 32-bit MS Word will now be able to read HGL files! It's easy, and the files import looking better than an original inkjet or plotter copy! Just type along in Word, and when you get to a point where you want a plot inserted, just click INSERT / PICTURE / FROM FILE and select the folder and file you want. You even see a thumbnail view of each plot as you select the file (but it's too small to read the plot annotations). Once you get this in place, and warm up to the process, you can stitch multiple data files into a big package without too much hassle. It sure beats scanning a printed copy and inserting it as a jpg image (and it's a lot smaller too). Ed
