Use the HPGLPENS.PS file to change the color and width of the default pen colors. The HP 7475A plotter actually has only six pens, but the printer's emulation supports up to 256 pens.
HP-GL pen settings cannot be made persistent across printer power cycles; pen settings revert to the default when the printer is turned off. To restore your pen settings, you must download your edited HPGLPENS.PS file to the printer whenever the printer has been turned off or reset.
The pen color change is persistent across jobs but not across printer power cycles; it affects all HP-GL jobs that immediately follow it until the next printer reset.
Note: The HPGLPENS.PS file affects printer operation. If the printer is shared on a network,
using this file may affect the prints requested from other users.
In the HPGLPENS.PS file, pen number, pen width, red value, green value, and blue value are listed in parentheses after /ColorSetup, as shown below:
/ColorSetup (pen_number width
red_value green_value blue_value...)
In the following example, all pen widths are set to 0.35 millimeters. Pen 0 is white (this is the background pen color), pen 1 is black, pen 2 is red, pen 3 is green, pen 4 is blue, pen 5 is cyan, pen 6 is magenta, and pen 7 is yellow.
- CTRL-D
- (%HP7475A%) << /Password ()
- /ColorSetup (0 0.35 1.0 1.0 1.0
- 1 0.35 0.0 0.0 0.0
- 2 0.35 1.0 0.0 0.0
- 3 0.35 0.0 1.0 0.0
- 4 0.35 0.0 0.0 1.0
- 5 0.35 0.0 1.0 1.0
- 6 0.35 1.0 0.0 1.0
- 7 0.35 1.0 1.0 0.0)
- >> setdevparams
- CTRL-D
Allowable values for pen numbers are 0 through 255. Pen width is measured in millimeters. Red, green, and blue values can be any number between 0.0 and 1.0. The following table shows the red, green, and blue combinations for each of the eight basic colors.
|
Pen color number
|
Color
|
Red
value
|
Green value
|
Blue
value
|
|---|
|
0
|
white
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
|
1
|
black
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
|
2
|
red
|
1.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
|
3
|
green
|
0.0
|
1.0
|
0.0
|
|
4
|
blue
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
1.0
|
|
5
|
cyan
|
0.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
|
6
|
magenta
|
1.0
|
0.0
|
1.0
|
|
7
|
yellow
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
0.0
|
To add a new pen, you must redefine pens 0 through 7 first, then add the new pens you want.
To set pen widths and colors to values other than those in the HPGLPENS.PS file, follow these steps:
- Configure the printer's port to receive PostScript; see Printing PostScript files for instructions.
- Locate the utility files on the Phaser 600 printer's CD-ROM; refer to Installing the files for instructions.
- Copy the HPGLPENS.PS file to your hard disk, and open the file in a text editor.
- Edit the file and substitute the values you want for those in the file. Color values can be any decimal number between 0.0 and 1.0.
For example, to change pen 4 to a purple color and a width of .5 mm, edit the HPGLPENS.PS file and change the line for pen number 4 to the following:
- 4 0.5 1.0 0.0 0.5
- When you have finished editing the file, use one of the following methods to send the HPGLPENS.PS file to the printer:
- PC users: Use the DOS COPY command to send the file to the printer. (Windows 3.1 users can also use the Copy command in the File Manager.)
- Workstation users: Send the file to the printer as you would any PostScript file.
