Main functions

Introduction

Graph Paper Printer is an application designed for manual graphing. It prints custom graph paper and music staff paper in any size and colors. Numerous options are available through dropdown lists :

•	Cartesian, polar, triangular and hexagonal diagrams.

•	Linear scales (metric, imperial, customizable and 31 days).

•	Non linear scales (logarithmic, gaussian, quadratic, square-root scales).

•	Music paper.

•	Mercator grids.

•	Axonometric perspective grids.

•	Bee-cell paper.

•	Weibull plot.

•	Pitch reduction on printed sheets to allow A3 enlargements with exact scales.

•	Accuracy adjustment for exact divisions with any printer.

•	Copy/paste of diagrams to other applications.

Audience

Graph Paper Printer is a must-have program, of interest for a wide range of users :

•	Teachers, students, schoolboys.

•	Scientists, researchers, engineers.

•	Navigators, geographers.

•	Quilt, patchwork, cross-stitch....

•	Architects, draftsmen, circuit-boards designers.

•	Hobbyists, modelists, radio-amateurs.

•	Roleplaying games.

Sheet preview

The preview of the diagrams displayed on the left of the screen is provided :

•	To control the selected scales.

•	To adjust the margins with the mouse (click and glide on the diagram to move it).

•	To adjust the size with the mouse (click on the red zone and glide to resize the diagram).

•	To control the keyboard entries.

Important : The aspect of the diagrams on the screen is only a very rough image of what will be printed. This is due to the huge difference of resolution between the printer and the screen. The color of each printed line also cannot be displayed on the preview. It appears in a special left-bottom panel.

Zoom

The zoomed view shows a colored picture of the center of the graph paper in full size.

Important : The aspect of the zoomed diagram on the screen is not an exact picture of what will be printed. The screen points are too big to display the slight differences of thickness between lines. Worse, tight arrays of lines (e.g. 1 mm) are displayed with irregular spacings.

Entry fields

All the dimensions are expressed in cm. The true overall dimensions of the printed diagrams are lower than what is displayed in the entry fields :

•	In linear scales, a default rounding is applied to get an integer number of divisions on the axes (whole cm or whole ½ inch).

•	In non-linear scales and  31 days scale, even if no margin is programmed, small ones are inserted to print the labels of the graduations along the axes.

Copy / paste

When the button  <copy> is pressed, the diagram without its margins is transfered to the clipboard as a metafile-picture that can be inserted in a « Microsoft Word » document, keeping exact scales, or in any application compatible with metafile-pictures.

Enlargement

When checking the button (A4 > A3) the diagram is printed as sized (height, width, left margin, bottom margin) but with reduced scales so that a photocopy with 141% enlargement (format A4 to format A3) gives a A3 diagram with the exact scales.

Subdivisions in non-linear scales

In non linear scales,  the axis range is divided in  unequal intervals. The largest divisions can be subdivided by dotted lines. It is possible to define  the limits beyond which the intervals are sub-divided in 2, 5 or 10 parts.

Printer setup

This button opens a dialog to change the orientation (portrait/landscape) of the diagram and the dimensions of the paper sheet. The new format is displayed on the screen preview as a proportionnal rectangle as large as possible. Because of Windows enhanced metafile format capabilities, the maximum size allowed for a diagram is 32 cm (height or width). If you print on a US legal paper (14 inches high = 35.6 cm) it will be impossible to get a diagram as high as the sheet of paper.

Accuracy

With some printers, the divisions in metric and imperial scales have not an exact length. It is possible to enter a correction factor (horizontal or vertical) thanks to trackbars in the  accuracy dialog.

Printer problems

Some printer drivers cannot print correctly the diagrams of 'Graph Printer Printer', particularly when the lines are thick and tight with a full page format. In that case, the driver automatically tries to print with a reduced resolution, but the result is always bad. If you meet this problem with your printer, the only solution is to reduce the size of your diagrams.

Custom graph paper

The dropdown pick-list <Kind of diagram> provides a way to print any linear scale. For instance, to print 1/6 inch paper, select <Custom linear grid> and  enter in the fields :
- spacing between thin lines: 4,233 mm (= 1/6 inch)
- one medium line every : 3 (medium line for 1/2 inch)
- one thick line every : 2 (thick line for 1 inch).

Links

Definition of the color and width of the lines.

Weibull plot.


Width and color of lines

Sets of lines

There are three types of main lines (thin, medium, thick ) and one type (dotted) for subdivisions in non-linear scales. Each line is defined by a color and a width (measured in 1/100 mm). The user can create his own sets of lines in the dialog opened by a click on the button <Change>.

Width of lines

The width is entered in 1/100 mm, but the result on the paper depends on the resolution of the printer. If you have a 600 dpi printer, the diameter of the dot is about 4/100 mm. The minimum line width will be 4/100 mm even if you type in 1/100. The default widths are

•	4/100 for thin lines (= 1 dot wide for 600 dpi printers).

•	8/100 for medium lines (= 2 dots wide for 600 dpi printers).

•	12/100 for thick lines (= 3 dots wide for 600 dpi printers)

Colors of lines

Use colored sets of lines only if you have a color printer. If you have a black and white one, you must only use black lines. Black and white printer drivers turn colored lines in greys in an unpredictable way. The thin colored lines may disappear and the largest may have a reduced width.

Distribution of lines

Scales	Thin lines	Medium lines	Thick lines
Linear X mm 	every X mm  	every 1 cm	every 5 cm
Linear half-inch	every inch/20	every inch/4	every inch/2
Linear inch/X	every inch/X	every inch/2	every inch
Logarithmic	between medium	1, 10, 100,...	none
Quadratic	between medium	0, 10, 20,...	none
Square-root	between medium	0, 10, 20,...	none
Music paper	staff lines	bars	staff beginning
31 days	every day	days 1 and 31	none
Hexag X mm 	every X mm	every 1 cm	none
Triang X mm	every X mm	every 1 cm	none
Axono X mm	every X mm	every 1 cm	none

Custom diagram:	freely programmable.
Polar diagrams:	circles identical to lines for the same cartesian scale
diameters = thin lines.
Bee-cell paper:	medium lines everywhere.

How to create a new set of lines ?

Enter in the fields of the right pane :

•	The colors for thin, medium and thick lines (the color of the subdivision-lines is the same as the thin one).

•	The width of the thin, medium and thick lines. The width of the subdivision-lines is always 1/100.

•	The style of subdivision-lines (dashed or dotted).

•	A name for the new created set of line.

Validate the entries by a click on <Add as new>. The new set is then displayed in the left listbox.

Validate the new list and exit the dialog with the button <OK>.

How to modify a set of lines ?

Select in the left list box the name of the set to modify.
Enter in the fields of the right pane :

•	The new colors for thin, medium and thick lines (the color of the subdivision-lines is the same as the thin one).

•	The new width of the thin, medium and thick lines. The width of the subdivision-lines is always 1/100.

•	The style of subdivision-lines (dashed or dotted).

•	If necessary, change the name of the modified set of line.

Validate the entries by a click on <Modify set of lines>.

Validate the new list and exit the dialog with the button <OK>.

Buttons

<Erase selected set> To erase the set selected in the list.

<Modify selected set> To replace a set of lines by what is entered in the right panel.

<Reset default> To erase the list of lines and replace it by black, blue, green, red, yellow lines.

<Undo> To cancel the modifications made by the above four buttons.

<OK>  To update the new list and exit from the dialog.

<Cancel> Exit from the dialog without updating.

Links

Main help screen.

Weibull plot.


Weibull analysis

The Weibull plotting-sheet is designed for reliability data analysis. It linearizes the regression of the median ranks on the lifetimes.

Abscissa (lifetimes)

Plot on this logarithmic scale the lifetimes, either number of cycles before failure or failure times. Select in the dropdown pick-list the narrowest range (1 to 5 decades) that contains the whole range of failure data.

Left ordinate

This scale is provided to read reliability predictions. Graduations are the probabilities of failure (0.01 to 0.99). Each one is positionned on the axis with the transformation :

 Ordinate = ln(-ln(1-failure probability)).

Reliability = 1 - failure probability

Right ordinate

This scale allows the direct plotting of the experimental cumulative number of observed failures for a given lifetime. Each cumulated number n (from 1 to N) is first transformed in an estimation of a median failure frequency in the population with the median ranks formula:
median failure frequency =(n-0.3)/(N+0.4)
which is positionned on the right ordinate axis with the transformation ln(-ln(1-(n-0.3)/(N+0.4))).

Important : For each sample of N failure data, you must print a special Weibull plotting-sheet with the exact number N of data points to get a right conversion of n through the median ranks formula.

Links

Main help screen.

Definition of the color and width of the lines.