Virtual printer

[Atomic]

I have an old instrument that only outputs information (specifically a plot) to a printer. I would like to capture that output and log it on a computer using labview. Can labview do such a task? Can someone help me to get started? Gratefully, Adam

[Mark_Yedinak]

I think you will need to provide more information. Virtually anything is possible with LabVIEW but we would need to know more details to be able to suggest solutions to your problem.

[PhillipBrooks]

In order for an instrument to output HPGL data, it must become the master on the GPIB bus.

LabVIEW will normally set your GPIB controller as the master, making it difficult to write LabVIEW code that to capture the HPGL. (only one master on the bus at a time).

There are some stand-alone utilities that can capture the HPGL output of an instrument; see this post:

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=293491&query.id=1566415#M293491

Search the forums for HPGL...