v1.0.9a

  In addition a to few minor fixes, the major addition to pLOT v1.0.9a is the ability to export vector maps to .EPS format in addition to the .BMP format previously available.  This is done through the File/Export Map as Image menu.


The two main advantages of the .EPS format (for the purposes of this program) are:

1.  It allows for vector drawings.  This meaning that you can resize the image to any size without loss of resolution or pixelation of the graphic and
2. The EPS files tend to be much smaller than the equivalent bitmap file.

However, there are few considerations here when using the .EPS format.

1) Font Availability
   Only a few fonts (~13) are standard for EPS files.  Using other fonts require them to be embedded in the file.  Thus, until I get the embedding code written up (if I can), the font used in EPS graphics will be Times New Roman.

2) Image dimensions
   The size of the plot on your screen will affect the basic dimensions of the image in the EPS file.  pLOT will adjust the size of the canvas to show labels that are displayed off screen in the program but the height-to-width proportions of the drawings and font size remain proportional.  The wider your linear plot on the screen, the wider the width of the image you will generate.  This allows you to determine the look before you export to the image.  *Note that the code to unclip labels is not fully optimized yet.  If some clipping still occurs, you may need to widen the window on the screen before exporting.*

3) Not all EPS-reading/saving software is created equally!
   The program you use can affect the quality of the image you see.  For example, Photoshop generates very nice bitmap images from EPS files (Fig. 1) but does not do the bolding of the font very well while Word and Powerpoint have not done so well on the actual image quality for me (at least when looking at the image in Word) but shows the font bolding (Fig. 2).  Likewise, saving the Word document directly as a PDF from Word's "Save As" menu results in less than optimal images.  However, printing the Word to a PDF using the freeware PDF Creator results in very nice PDFs.  I currently use Photoshop for converting EPS images to bitmaps and PDF Creator to generate PDFs of vector maps with sequence information, etc... from Word.  There are probably many programs/solutions that works better that I just haven't tried.

If you open in Photoshop, make sure to specify open as RGB, NOT CYMK or the colors will not show up correctly.

Fig 1. JPG from the EPS through Photoshop

Fig. 2 [Word Doc with inserted EPS saved directly to PDF]

Fig. 3 [PDF printed from the same Word document using PDF Creator]

pLot 1.0.9a Download Links

*This patch requires a full installation of  v1.0.8a.  If installing 1.0.8a first, please be sure that ALL files are deleted from the Program files/pLOT directory.  Windows 7+ does not always erase the pLOT.exe and pLOT.dll files on uninstall*

pLOT v1.0.9a Patch [Link 1] [Link 2]

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