schematic/image conversions

My version of circuitmaker allows export of schematics in wmf. I can also use a printing command and get a pdf output file, and get reasonable fascmilies in that format.

What I'd like to do is convert to gif or jpg. Anyone have favored utilities they could recommend?

PDFCreator will allow you to print to image files. You can get it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ - assuming circuitmaker is a windoze app...

But don't use JPEGs for schematics - GIF or PNG are much better formats for images with few colours.

Best regards,

Mikkel C. Simonsen

google for "download irfanview"

I usually copy in buffer then paste in irfanview

I'm pretty sure old-fashioned MS Paint will open a .WMF file. I know it works on the Vista version. After that, save as a .JPG.

Thanks I will investigate these.

> don't use JPEGs for schematics - GIF or PNG

PLEASE don't use JPG for clean line-art. Your CircusMaker surely emits very clean lines; JPEG with any compression past "1" will fuzz it up. Even good scans on yellowed paper, if you bump the contrast, will be much clearer in GIF or PNG than in JPG. Save JPG for nudes and landscapes, what it was made to do very well.

> old-fashioned MS Paint will open a .WMF file

Works in XP sp2. You may hafta right-click, "Open With..." to get it into Paint.

Paint, from at least XP days, does have Save As... GIF. It is also possible to do some annotation, crop, re-size, but very crude/limited.

IrfanView is free and very handy to have.

> get a pdf output file

PDF is great if it is a multi-page document. Also the usual PDF Readers will re-size to the user's convenience.

Another Win-trick. Get the PDF open big, hit Ctrl-PrntScrn. That puts your entire screen in the clipboard.

Alternatively, some PDF Readers have a mode to "Select Graphic". It has sometimes worked for me. This captures the selected area, instead of entire screen, to clipboard.

Now open Paint and "Paste Special". This pastes the clipboard as a new image. You can Save As...

Cropping in Paint is under-implemented. You can Select an area, Copy, close the original, then Paste Special and get the part you selected as a new image.

I strongly suggest finding PaintShop Pro version 3 to 7 in used-software sources. This will screen-capture, bump contrast, mark-up, re-size, and save to the usual formats. I tried a later version and felt shark-jumped... a few kewl features but nothing urgent, and the whole thing was very slow. V.5 was, IMHO, the high-point of the line as far as basic tech-image chores go (v.7 is better for photo flattery). The shareware versions are archived here http://www.oldapps.com/Paint_Shop_Pro.php but I do not recall what the trial-version limits were.

[quote author="Wavebourn"]google for "download irfanview"

I usually copy in buffer then paste in irfanview[/quote]

I'll second that. I use it to convert just about anything except .pdf to just about anything except .pdf.

Specifically, it will open .wmf files, and save in .gif.

Peace,
Paul

As for wmf to pdf to print or web, please use no step of rasterizing, please (no bitmap format like png, bmp, jpeg, tiff, gif, tga or raw).
wmf is a vector format, pdf is a container format able to hold vector fomat and a (good) printing device will do the best out of this without any loss at all.
(speaking of postscript for example).
Also for web, pdf is all fine and small (if containing a vectorized pic), and, as a big bonus, it prints itself in the original format always!
(Well, if it is well made....and if you use a good viewer - obviously the format owner Adobe has a good one. PDF viewers are available for ALL platforms for free).
After all there is NO argument left for ANY bitmap format when you have already a fully lossless scalable circuit picture!

Kind regards,
Martin

I'll happily steer clear of pdf out of circuitmaker if I can. I thought that might be the only route but then realized that the wmf was an option. An earlier version had more options, but in their less-than-infinite wisdom they were eliminated in my latest.

I readily found IrfanView. I may spring for a copy since some of its use will probably be for commerce, and it sounds like the guy could use some support.