ADIPLOT

A Shareware Printer/Plotter Driver for AutoCad 2.18 or Higher

BY
J. R. Applegate
P. O. Box 33492
Northglenn, CO 80233

With AutoCad vs. 2 and above AutoDesk has included printer drivers for a very
limited set of printers. Unfortunately these drivers provide far less
resolution than the capability of most dot matrix printers. Furthermore, in
the case of the Epson driver, only the FX series printers are driven. But
AutoDesk has provided a way to develop your own device drivers through their
ADI device driver support kit. It is the information in that kit and the
ADI plot device driver provided with vs. 2.18 and higher that allowed the
development of ADIPLOT.

ADIPLOT is a series of programs for various printers that read an ADI plot file
produced by AutoCad and generate a near plotter quality output on a dot matrix
printer. Currently only Epson and Okidata printers are supported, but the
program has been tested on Epson MX, FX, and LX printers as well as the Okidata
ML92A. The plots produced are of a far greater quality than those produced
by AutoCad's printer drivers. This is a result of using a plotter driver
(PLGEN.DRV) to generate the vectors and then rasterizing the plot external to
AutoCad, where far more memory is available for the printer bitmap.

To use ADIPLOT copy the appropriate driver, ADIEPS.EXE (EPSON) or ADIOKI.EXE
(OKIDATA) to your ACAD directory. You must then reconfigure AutoCad to use the
ADI Plotter. On 2.18 and 2.5, this driver is plotter number 2. The config-
uration routine will ask several questions. It is important that you select
an ASCII output file (option 0) and a plotting increment of 1000 units/inch.
THESE ARE THE ONLY SETTINGS THAT WILL WORK!! When plotting, AutoCad will ask
you for a plot file name. I recommend that the extension .PLT be added to this
name. After plotting you must leave AutoCad to physically plot the file. You
can then run ADIPLOT by typing either ADIEPS or ADIOKI depending on your
printer type. ADIPLOT will prompt you for the name of the file.

I had originally planned to market this program for $99, since the only
product I have seen that provides the same function is a hardware device priced
at $500! But since I am a semi-starving grad student currently being supported
by my wife I do not have the resources necessary to advertise and market these
programs. I have long been a proponent of shareware (this file was written
with PC-Write 2.71) and sysop of a BBS and so I am willing to buck the recent
bad press that shareware has received. Please prove Mr. Button and others
wrong by contributing a contribution of $25 for this product. This will allow
you to receive my enhanced version (quad density on an FX!) as soon as it is
available as well as the satisfaction of rewarding my efforts and encouraging
me to develop new products. The price of PC software is skyrocketing. Only
by encouraging freeware and shareware developers can you find low cost
alternatives to this inflationary trend.

A registration form has been included in REGFORM.TXT. Please enclose it with
your contribution so you can receive my user group and product newsletter as
well as information on new products.

AutoCad and ADI are registered trademarks of AutoDesk, Inc.