Hardcopy and file output

 If you really want to impress the tourists with your data you should plot out some spectra, or better still, maps, on the laserprinter, or make GIF files for WWW display. There are two ways to do this.

For spectra the easy way is to use the command laser. This command creates a plot file which may be sent to the local laser printer (defined in the setup of the node you are working at). The command see-plot has a similar effect to laser. In this case you provide the output device (terminal, printer, or null -- the latter is a bit bucket); e.g.:

 >> see-plot
 Terminal / Hardcopy / Null (T/H/N) t
 -- sxgdevice --/xwindow         SPECXDIR:SPECX_PGPLOT.PS
 >>

A more involved way involves first creating a plot file with which you can then do whatever you want. In this case first select the output medium you want using the command s-h-d:

 >> s-h-d
 Printers available: 
 cps_l,            cps_p,            ps_l,             ps_p,             
 ln03_l,           ln03_p,           ecpsf_ltex,       ecpsf_ptex,       
 epsf_ltex,        epsf_ptex,        gif_l,            gif_p             
 
 Printer type? [gif_l] cps_l
 >>

As you can see there are quite a few possibilities, thanks to the use of up-to-date PGPLOT. In this case I wanted to change from a landscape GIF format to a color Postscript landscape plot. SPECX always gives the output file a default name; specx_pgplot.ps for Postscript, specx_pgplot.eps for Encapsulated Postscript, and specx_pgplot.gif for GIF files, for instance. Unix being what it is, this file will be overwritten every time you create a new plot file of the same type. Therefore if you want to save the plot file, rather than have it overwritten when you make the next plot, you should copy the generic file to a name of your choice; e.g.:

$\gt\!\gt$ $ cp specx_pgplot.ps myplotfile.ps

One cannot use the laser command for maps (see below).