Printing/Plotting your schematic or layout

1. The instructions below assume you have a .cdsplotinit file in the directory where you started Cadence that was copied from /afs/ece/usr/mems/.cdsplotinit. If you try to follow the following instructions and the Submit Plot window indicates that there are no plotters, then you probably didn't copy this file right.
2. Open the schematic or layout window you want to print
3. Select: Design->Plot->Submit
4. In the Submit Plot window that pops up, select header, notes as desired.
5. Press: Display Options on the Submit Plot window
• Deselect Axes (this will remove the axes from the plot
6. Press: Plot Options on the Submit Plot window
7. From the plotter name list, the following are useful
   • actual printers such as asimov2, tolkien, etc. Printing directly to these is hit or miss because their spool files may not be available on the machine you are running Cadence
   • Generic 600 or 300 dpi level 2 PS
   • EPS (if you need to include the schematic/layout in a paper/talk)

   I suggest that you simply select the option to plot to a file (bottom of the window), and then do the actual printing using a command line statement. That seems to work out the easiest. Level 2 PS is simply color PostScript. The 600 dpi setting can be used for printing to color postscript printers capable of handling 8.5 inch by 11 inch pages. The 300 dpi setting is best for large format color printers such as clarkkent. The 8.5 inch by 11 inch printers (e.g., Asimov2, Tolkien, and Waldo) use paper size A. The large format printer (clarkkent) magnifies paper size A to a 36" wide plot.

8. I suggest that you do not check the Center Plot option. You should definitely check the Fit to Page button. The info to the right of these gives the actual plot size and number of pages. By changing the scaling factor, you can get the plot to cover multiple pages.
9. Check the Send Plot Only to File option and fill in a name for the postscript file, and include the .ps or .eps (for EPS prints to be included in papers/talks) extension.

These PS files can be printed on the postscript printers all over the department (Asimov2, Waldo, Lem, clarkkent) by FTP'ing the PostScript (PS) file to a PC, and then simply draging and dropping the file icon onto the appropriate printer icon. If you can execute the command lpq -P printername, you can also print the PS file to the printer in the command line using lpr -P printername file.ps.

clarkkent is CSSI's large format printer plotter (in HH 2137) capable of 1200 by 600 dpi color postcript on a 36" wide continuous roll of glossy paper. This printer cannot be accessed from most UNIX machines, so you may need to ftp the file (or AFS access the file) from a PC before printing. Adobe Acrobat works very well, and ghostscript has been known to work. To get 36" wide printouts, you will need to click on "scale to print" button and select ARCH E (36" by 48") for paper type. If you are printing a whole chip here, you should be aware that 600 dpi is overkill, and you may want to use 300 dpi to keep the file sizes manageble.

Please direct any questions to: tamal@ece.cmu.edu

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Revised: 04/04/05 by tamal@ece.cmu.edu