Copyright: Copyright 1995 TommySoftware®


TommySoftware® Tek Illustrator

Questions and Answers

This document lists some frequently asked questions and their answers.

When I copy some objects to the Clipboard in Tek Illustrator, an area of about 5 millimeters around the objects remains blank. Why?

When copying to the clipboard (or when printing), the application uses the output parameters that can be edited using the command Configuration>Settings>Output. One of those settings determines whether the output area in calculated based on the objects' surrounding frame or based on the current page size. By default, the setting "Object Frame" is active, with an additional blank frame of 5 millimeters. To remove this blank frame, set the value of "Offset" to 0 millimeters.
As you will see, the output settings can influence all output results (printer, plotter, clipboard and bitmap) in several ways.

How does one create a drawing at an English scale of, for example, 1/8"=1' or 1/4"= 1' ? I can figure out how to change from metric to English coordinates, but can only find reduction factors geared to units of 10.

You can easily enter such a scale by using the "Current Scale" edit fields at the command Configuration>Coordinate Systems>Edit, button "View". In these fields, you can enter values that are combined with units, so you may e.g. enter (1/8)in in the first field and 1ft in the second field. This will result in the correct scale of 1=96.

When I convert a drawing that has been created using Tek Illustrator to the DXF file format (by means of the convertor T3G->DXF), all fillings get lost. How can I avoid that?

In the DXF file format, standard objects like circles or polygons cannot be filled. Due to this limitation, all Tek Illustrator objects are converted to outlined objects.
If you want to export filled objects to other application, use the Clipboard or the WMF file format. Alternatively, you can also create a PostScript® file by using a PostScript printer driver and redirecting its output to a file.

When exporting to a bitmap, a currently displayed second bitmap is sometimes not correctly copied to the export bitmap. Why?

A display bitmap is not considered when calculation the required size of the export bitmap. As a result, the export bitmap can be too small to contain the complete display bitmap. In these cases, the display bitmap will not correctly be copied to the export bitmap.
E.g., you can avoid this problem by placing marks on the display bitmap's corners. The export bitmap will then be large enough to contain the complete display bitmap.

Which TommySoftware® application can use Digitizers? Is there anything to pay special attention to?

In principle, all of our application can be use a Digitizer if this Digitizer can emulate the mouse under Windows.
Tek Illustrator supports additional functionality. The most simple function is having the Digitizer driver to send character sequences to the application in order to select commands or to enter coordinates. Unfortunately, only very few Digitizer drivers offer the possibility to generate such character sequences.
When using Calcomp® Digitizers of the 33000 and 34000 series, Tek Illustrator offers direct support of some functions that the Digitizer's Windows driver (»Tablet Manager«) supplies. The working area of the Digitizer will be separated into "command fields" that can be assigned to Tek Illustrator commands. Additionally, Tek Illustrator allows a calibration of the Digitizer, enabling 1:1 coordinate input via the digitizer, independent of the display size.
For further information, see the topic "Using Digitizers" in the Tek Illustrator Reference.

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TommySoftware® Tek Illustrator - Edition 3.12e - Copyright 1995 TommySoftware®