Re: overwrite some plottings on existing postscript file

[Billy Kessler <kessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There are a few changes that can easily be made to postscript out
of Fprint, especially with respect to line thickness changes. I
believe it is not possible to add new text in any kind of simple
way, because all text that comes through Ferret is just vector
plot commands, not text statements, (that is, all characters drawn
are essentially just part of the plot) and there are no fonts defined
in postscript from Fprint. If fonts were defined, then text could be
added.

One easy task is to increase the thickness of ferret lines. Even the
3rd set of line thicknesses (col=13 to col=18) are not very thick on
my printer. To modify this in postscript:

1. make the lines in ferret in some color that is not used for anything
else.
2. Fprint -l cps
3. edit postscript file:
a. look for the color table (near the top of the postscript file), which
associates Ferret line numbers 1-6 with RGB colors:
(note that above this is another color table that might be for fonts).

ct 1 [0.000000 0.000000 0.000000] put
ct 2 [1.000000 0.000000 0.000000] put
ct 3 [0.000000 1.000000 0.000000] put
ct 4 [0.000000 0.000000 1.000000] put
ct 5 [0.000000 1.000000 1.000000] put
ct 6 [1.000000 0.000000 1.000000] put

Changes to the RGB values in this color table will be reflected in the
printed output.

b. A second easy task is to change line widths. Again, if the lines to be
modified have been made in ferret with a unique color (say line 3=green),
then search through the postscript file for occurrences of "3 o",
which indicates line 3. The line before each of these gives the line
width:

"1.000000 lw" is width 1, etc. Ferret will only make line widths up to 3.

Thus, combining these two techniques, to get a thick gray line, make the
line in ferret as green, then change the 3rd line of the color table to

ct 3 [0.600000 0.600000 0.600000] put

(gray) and change all occurrences of "1.000000 lw" before "3 o" to
"9.000000 lw".

Other types of changes are done similarly: use the ferret colors to mark
the lines to be modified, then edit the color table and line thicknesses.
For instance, you can make a thick green line overlaid by a thin white
line, etc, etc.

Billy K
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
William S. Kessler

E-mail: kessler@pmel.noaa.gov (will be forwarded)

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