Frequently asked questions

How can I buy a license for Graph Paper Printer
This software is free and unlimited. If you use it at home, at school or for your job, I only ask, as a reward of my work, a simple postcard, typical of your environment. Would you write down the field in which you are using Graph Paper Printer, stick a pretty stamp for my son and mail the card to the postal address :

How can I resize the diagram
Left-click on the red square displayed in the top-right corner of the red frame and, keeping the left button down, move the mouse to get the size you want. More accurately, you can also enter the appropriate values in the fields of the panel "size".

How can I set the margins of the diagram
Left-click inside the red frame of the preview and, keeping the left button down, move the mouse to get the margins you want. More accurately, you can also enter the appropriate values in the fields "margins".

Why is my diagram smaller than the preset dimensions
The white surface represents the printing page. The outline you have defined is displayed as a red frame. The actual surface of the diagram may be smaller in two cases :
1) Metric and imperial axes. In these scales there is a rounding down to the nearest integer division (1 cm or 1/2 in). The diagram is centered in the red frame with two additional equal margins.
2) Graduated scales (time, log, square, square root, probability, Weibull, logit) : additional margins are taken from the surface of the diagrams to provide room to print the values of the graduations along the axes.

Why does the preview neither show the color nor the width of the lines
The screen resolution is too low to accurately display the width of the lines. To differentiate the light, medium and heavy lines on the preview, conventional colors are adopted (light = silver, medium = gray, heavy = black). The actual colors and widths are visible in a special panel on the right or in the zoomed preview.

I have changed the width of the lines but without any visible modification in the zoomed preview or on the printed paper
It originates from a limited resolution. In the zoomed preview, a one-pixel line represents all of the lines ranging from 0.01 mm to 0.39 mm width. With a 600 dpi printer, a one-dot line represents all of the lines ranging from 0.01 mm to 0.06 mm.

Why is the size of the diagrams limited to 32 cm
Windows 95/98 supports only 16-bit signed coordinates (range -32 768 to 32 767). Graph Paper Printer uses the hi-metric mode in which each logical unit is mapped to 0.01 millimeter. The maximum allowed size is then 32 768 * 0.01 = 327.68 mm.

Can I keep the design of the papers I have created
Yes, click on the button "Keep the current paper", give a name to your design and that's all. Later, you will be able to retrieve or edit your paper with all of its attributes among the "Personal papers".

How can I navigate between entry fields with the keyboard
Key in "Tab" to jump to the next field or "Shift + Tab" to return to the previous one. Note that the entries in the editor-fields are not acquired when pressing "Tab". You must use "Enter" or the relevant button "Apply".

I would like to print a unique sheet of paper with 4 different small diagrams
Create your diagrams one by one and transfer them to the same page of your favorite word-processor program through the clipboard using the button "Copy". You can also save your diagrams as a disk metafile with the button "Save" and reload them in your word-processor program.

I am a teacher and wants to print a grid to write down 6 grades for each one of my 25 pupils
Select the type of paper "Table" and set the number of rows to 25 and the number of columns to 7 (one for the names plus 6 for the grades). When created, all of the columns have the same width. To widen the first one reserved to names, left-click on its right border-line. Then, keeping the left button down, move the mouse rightwards to position the limit of the column where you want with the help of the graduated bottom scale. To equalize the width of the 6 columns of grades, select them through a series of right-click of the mouse (they turn yellow) and press the button "Equalize selected columns".

What is a "set of lines"
When you have defined the colors and widths for the heavy, medium and light lines of a graph paper, all of these parameters are automatically saved as a "set of lines" to be available later for another design of graph paper. Default sets of lines are provided at the first opening of the program. Each set of lines has a name. If you do not change the name of the current set of lines, it is simply edited when you press OK. If you enter a new name, a new set of lines is created and added in the list.

What are subdivision lines
In non linear scales (log, square, square root, probability, logit, weibull), the axis range is divided in unequal intervals.The largest divisions can be subdivided if the checkbox "subdivisions" is ticked. The threshholds over which subdivisions are drawn can be changed through the button "Configuration".

When is an accuracy correction useful
According to the printer, the metric or imperial actual divisions can be a bit too wide or too narrow. An accuracy correction ranging in +/-1% is provided in the dialog "Configuration". Two independant factors for horizontal and vertical axes are to define.

Switching from metric to imperial system
Go in the configuration dialog and check the box imperial.

Scales	Heavy lines	Medium lines	Light lines
Metric	every 5 cm	every 1 cm	other lines
Imperial half-inch	every 2.5 inches	every inch/2	other lines
Imperial	every inch	every inch/2	other lines
N divided	none	every 10 divisions	other lines
Time	none	1, 5, 10 …	other lines
Logarithmic	none	1, 10, 100, …	other lines
Quadratic	none	0, 10, 20, 50	other lines
Square-root	none	0, 10, 20, 50	other lines
Mercator	every 60 light lines	every 10 light lines	other lines
Music paper	beginning of scores	bars	staff lines
Tablature	none	none	staff lines

Printer problems
Some printer drivers cannot correctly manage the diagrams created by Graph Printer Printer, particularly when the lines are thick and tight in a full page format. Printing also fails when the diagrams are copy/pasted in word-processor programs. To cope with this problem you can either reduce the size of your diagram and the thickness of the lines or throw away my program!

What is Weibull paper
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 6 cycles) wider than the range of the 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)).
Right ordinate : This scale allows a 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 and 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 an exact conversion through the median ranks formula.

Who uses Logit-Log regression
It is a data reduction method used in biology. The weighted logit-log technique linearizes most sigmoid curves. The ordinate transformation used is Logit(Y) = ln(Y/(1-Y)).

Feed-back from the users of "Graph Paper Printer"
I am an individual, not a company. I need therefore the help of all the users of my programs to find out the residual bugs and to add new features. Mail me your ideas or critics at philimar@easynet.fr. Even if I cannot answer everybody , I will consider every suggestion.