old drawing

[The Natural Philosopher]

Can they?

I thought it was pretty primitive in its vector capabilities.

[John Rumm]

HPGL is a vector format... and PDF is really just a wrapper round PostScript which also allows fully vectored rendering of lines and fonts etc.

I can understand why its preferred for many applications (and why it replaced PS and EPS for content delivery in the print industry). However most CAD package will be able to read and write DXF complete with words and pictures, so it seems like an odd exclusion.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The council is not in the business of proividing modifyable CAD files. It is in the business of publish unalterable versions. All CAD can export PDF.

You are not supposed to be importing council files into CAD.

[Andy Burns]

It's essentially a butchered form of postscript

[spuorgelgoog]

Or, this being the usual level of tech in local authorities, they could print out the CAD file and scan it in to PDF as a bitmap.

[John Rumm]

Or get someone to trace over it ;-)

[DJC]

And thus vectors all the way down.

[John Rumm]

Indeed...

Now this is something I have not done for probably decades, but let's see:

%!PS-Adobe-2.0 %%Title: Quick hack, can I remember how to hand code PostScript! %%EndComments

%% Font scaled to 18 point, origin set at 72 points (i.e. 1") in and up

/Times-Roman findfont 18 scalefont setfont

72 72 moveto (The quick brown fox could not type so gave up!) show

%% Now draw a 6" wide vector line triangle over it

newpath

72 100 moveto 72 6 mul 160 lineto 72 6 mul 100 lineto closepath stroke

showpage

%%EOF

Yup, that seems to work, a quick run through Distiller to get a PDF:

Now zoom in to show it really is a vector graphic:

[Ian Jackson]

Microsoft have a free stitching program, called ICE. It works very well, and it's easy to use. I've tried others, but prefer this one.

[Note that the last version that works with XP is V1.4.4.0]

[Vir Campestris]

I use autostitch

really intended for photos, but worth a go.

Andy

[Ian Jackson]

I used to use Autostitch, but turned to ICE several years ago. Both work on scanned maps and drawings - but as with photos, you do need a reasonable bit of overlap. Both sometimes get things wrong (with some interesting results).