Layout changes after file sharing
isend
Thu, 02/21/2019 - 01:33 am
The sizes and arrangement of the objects in a Layout in an Igor Pro pxp file I receive from my colleague change a lot. What tricks or standards should we follow to prevent this? (I already tried to use the same Page Setup for Layout as his, but it did not help.)
(My OS: Mac OS 10.10.5. His OS: Windows 7 in traditional Chinese. We both use Igor Pro 6.37.)
In Igor6, the page setup is stored for each page layout in an experiment. Changing the Page Setup for Layout affects new page layouts but not existing page layouts.
When you open an experiment in Igor6, the page setup for each layout is sent to the printer driver for the default printer for validation. Page setups are highly operating-system-specific and only basic settings (margins and orientation) are preserved across platforms, if possible. So it is not surprising that you get differences between Macintosh and Windows.
Starting with Igor7, page layouts no longer depend on page setups so this issue goes away. Differences in fonts may still cause the layout to change, but it is less likely if you stick to commonly-available fonts.
February 21, 2019 at 06:32 pm - Permalink
In reply to In Igor6, the page setup is… by hrodstein
Thank you, hrodstein. However, which bothers me most is not the page setup, but the sizes and locations of the objects inside the Layout. The attached file is an example, where the (a) (b) (c) (d) letters are seriously shifted when opened in Mac.
Are these problems all due to the incompatible Page setups between Windows and Mac (and will no longer exist in Igor Pro 7)? Is there a way to prevent these misalignments of objects in Igor Pro 6? Thank you.
February 22, 2019 at 12:39 am - Permalink
The shift is caused by the page setup not being preserved across platforms.
This is not a problem in Igor7 and later (we are currently shipping Igor Pro 8.02), but you will have to tweak the layout.
February 22, 2019 at 10:00 am - Permalink
I have imported your experiment into Igor8 on Windows and tweaked the layout. It was not easy - details below.
I then opened the new experiment (attached) in Igor8 on Macintosh and it looks the same as on Windows.
Here is what I did to tweak the experiment after opening it in Igor8:
•//
•// First, manually delete the text elements in the drawing layer that say
•// "Φ = 45°" and "Φ = -45°" and the associated drawn boxes used as frames.
•// We will replace these with textboxes below.
•//
•// Now execute these commands:
•//
•// Set the page size and margins to something reasonable. This replaces the Igor6 page setup.
•LayoutPageAction size(-1)=(595, 650), margins(-1)=(0, 50, 0, 50)
•
•// Recreate the textboxes at the bottom using Unicode characters instead of Symbol font
•// because Igor7 and later are Unicode-based
•DrawText 200,575,"\\Z25Φ = 45°"
•DrawText 500,575,"\\Z25Φ = -45°"
•//
•// Reposition the (a), (b), (c), and (d) textboxes
•TextBox/C/N=text1/F=0/S=1/A=LB/X=5/Y=95 "\\Z20\\F'Arial' (a)"
•TextBox/C/N=text2/F=0/S=1/A=LB/X=55/Y=95 "\\Z20\\F'Arial' (b)"
•TextBox/C/N=text3/F=0/S=1/A=LB/X=5/Y=45 "\\Z20\\F'Arial' (c)"
•TextBox/C/N=text4/F=0/S=1/A=LB/X=55/Y=45 "\\Z20\\F'Arial' (d)"
February 22, 2019 at 10:03 am - Permalink
BTW, Igor6 is a 32-bit program. Starting with the next version of Mac OS (10.15), 32-bit programs will not run on Mac OS. If you depend on Igor, you will need to upgrade. We are currently shipping version 8.02 which is 64-bit only.
February 22, 2019 at 10:05 am - Permalink