Sign cutter

[Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak]

Frank Cox wrote:
> We were discussing Linux and he told me that he has a Summa D60U sign cutter
> machine (basically a plotter) and uses a program called Flexi Sign and Corel
> Draw to lay out his signs.  He asked me if there was a Linux driver for his
> sign cutter so he could do his layouts with Scribus instead.  I said I would
> check on it.
> 
> I can find no reference to Summa-anything on http://www.linuxprinting.org; does
> anyone know anything about this sign cutter machine and its Linux support?  He
> said that the machine "speaks" HPGL.

Linux print systems (like CUPS) don't support HPGL directly.

However, if your program can generate HPGL output, you could probably 
set up a "raw" print queue so that CUPS dumps the HPGL output "as is" to 
the plotter.

Also, you might be able to save HPGL files, and dump them to a parallel 
or serial port, depending on your plotter configuration.

I think QCAD, Scribus, Inkscape, VariCAD, and others offer some level of 
HPGL support. Varicad is supposed to have plotter support built-in, but 
I haven't tried it. (Varicad is not free).

- Mike