Re: gEDA-user: Printing your artwork

[Darrell Harmon <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Christian Treldal wrote:

> Hi guys
>
> I've made a small pcb. The ps output is ok, it prints nicely to scale.
>
> I plan to use the toner transfer method to make the print. I am using HP
> inkjet overhead film for the transfer, and to save the costs (no I'm not
> a Scotsman) I wonders if someone has run into a program, that easily
> lets you multiply and arrange the pcb printout on one page, without
> destroying the scaling of the pcb.
>
> I've tried the Gimp, but it seems much to complicated for me. It lets
> you import and arrange the pcb's; but one seems always to end up with a
> printout, which is out of scale.
>
> I'm am aware, that of course its possible to fiddle with scaling in The
> Gimp; but I feel there is far to many options which could go wrong. 
>
> Any bright ideas before I'm running out of toner.
>  
I tell pcb to output eps, and use Lyx to arrange the layers how I want.  
It works very well.  Lyx can output a LaTeX file, so regenerating the 
PDF from the command line is possible.  This is nice because the artwork 
never gets converted to pixels.  I never print boards myself, but I do 
use this to place parts for checking footprints.

As an example, I have posted what I used for DSPCARD.  The .tex and .lyx 
file both expect a folder named ps in the same directory containing eps 
output from pcb named eps like eps_front.ps ...

PDF output:
http://dlharmon.com/dspcard/dspcard-art.pdf
LaTeX file:
http://dlharmon.com/dspcard/dspcard.tex
Lyx file:
http://dlharmon.com/dspcard/dspcard.lyx

--
Darrell Harmon
100x100mm SBC running GNU/Linux:
http://dlharmon.com/sbc.html