WinLINE Plotter Model Selection Guide

WinLINE currently supports HP-GL and HP-GL/2 devices only.

HP-GL is Hewlett Packard’s first generation vector language. There are two main variants of HP-GL language:

• Center Origin - The Coordinate 0,0 is in the center

• Lower Left Origin - 0,0 is in the lower left corner

Large format (greater than 11"x17") HP-GL plotters generally use center origin.

Small format HP-GL plotters generally use lower left origin.

HP-GL implementations may vary significantly from plotter to plotter. In general, the two most closely adopted "standards" for HP-GL are:

• HP 7475A - Lower Left origin small format HP-GL

• HP 7585B - Center origin large format HP-GL

HP-GL/2 is Hewlett Packard’s second generation vector language. Unlike HP-GL, HP-GL/2 implementations are consistent (largely the same) from model to model.

Hewlett Packard’s third generation raster plotters also support HP-GL/2 language, but the implementations for electrostatic and inkjet plotters differ from pen plotters in that color requests can be synthesised by the device rather than matched to a pen. Examples of raster implementations are the HP 7600 series electrostatics and the HP DesignJets.

In general, "HP compatible" plotters should emulate one of the following most common HP models:

1. HP 7475A for Lower Left Origin small format HPGL

2. HP 7585B for Center Origin large format HPGL

3. HP DraftMaster MX Plus for HP-GL/2 pen plotters

4. HP DesignJet for raster plotters

5. HP LaserJet (HP-GL/2) for PCL 5 and higher

In practice, some HP-GL implementations do not support all of the HP-GL commands implemented by HP plotters (and WinLINE). For these plotters, WinLINE includes generic HP-GL language support in the following models: