Robert W. Strickland Gemsoft Enterprises 6408 Earlyway Dr. Austin, TX 78749-1632 USA 512-892-1887 rstrick@compuserve.com FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT GEMCAD QUESTION: When cutting a marquis (or other narrow shape), when I try to cut a table (or star facet), GemCad whacks off most of the stone in the pavilion and leaves only the part that I want to keep. How do I get it to cut the way I want? ANSWER: Your stone must always contain the dot in the center of all four views. Conceptually, GemCad uses a saw blade instead of a lap. It keeps the part containing the dot and throws away the rest. On marquises the culet will often be near the bottom of the End View, and the level of the table wants to be below the dot. Before cutting the offending facet, use the Center command (c) to slide the stone up in the End View. Put the cursor close to the level of the girdle in the Side or End views, and press the Center (c) key. When GemCad asks "X, Y, or Z?" enter Z. This will scoot the stone up in the End view. The level of the table should then be above the dot. Read about the Center command on pages 53-54 in the GemCad 4.0 manual for a more detailed description. QUESTION: "I have Windows 95 and GemCad (or GemDot or GemPlot) won't print properly. ANSWER: There are several peculiarities to printing with GemCad under Windows 95. GemCad, GemDot, and GemPlot will not work with the Windows 95 print spooler. Print spooling collects print jobs on your disk so that they can be printed in the background in the order that the jobs were submitted so you can continue your work without waiting for the printer. Due to an apparent bug in Windows 95, GemCad will not work with its print spooler. The solution to most Windows 95 printer problems with GemCad, GemDot, and GemPlot seems to be to turn off the print spooler. For every printer except the DeskJet 820 (see below), do the following: 1. Click the Win 95 Start button 2. Select "settings" 3. Select "printers" 4. Single click on the icon for the printer in question to highlight it 5. Select "Properties" in the File Menu 6. Slect the "Details" index tab 7. Click the "Port Settings" button 8. UNcheck the box labeled "Spool MS-DOS Print Jobs" 9. Close windows 10. Test GemCad, GemDot, or GemPlot If you still have problems, you will have to turn off spooling altogether. To do this, do steps 1-6 above. Then do: 7. Click the "Spool Settings" button 8. Click the radio button labeled: "Print directly to the printer" Then do steps 9-10. QUESTION: I have an HP DeskJet 820 printer and I can't make it work with GemCad or GemPlot. ANSWER: The HP DeskJet 820 is a Windows-only printer and doesn't support Hewlett-Packard's PCL language directly. (Every other DeskJet model does, however.) The Windows driver that comes with the printer will interpret the PCL and control the printer. To make GemCad work with this printer, you must fisrt print to a file and then copy the file to the printer. To print to a file with GemCad, press "C" to configure. (You should be in the directory where GemCad resides. See page 65 in the manual.) Press Enter in response to each question until you get to where it asks "Prompt for file name each time:" Answer 1. (Press the 1 key and then press Enter.) Continue pressing Enter until it asks you to save the configuration file. Answer yes. From then on, when you run GemCad and press the F-12 key, GemCad will prompt you for a file name. Use a name like "foo". Then press the bang (!, shift-1) key to get GemCad's DOS escape prompt and type copy/b foo prn and press Enter. You will probably have to press the feed button on your printer. With GemPlot, you can enter the file name when it asks, "Output file name?" Enter something like "foo" run a MS-DOS box and use the copy/b command above. QUESTION: With DataVue2, how do I get a design into GemCad so I can edit it or print the cutting instructions? ANSWER: DataVue2 is Long's and Steele's database of over 3500 faceting designs. You can search for designs by shape, name, designer, publication, etc. When you find a design you want to investigate further, go to the File menu DataVue2 and select "Get ASC." A dialog box will pop up saying that a file has been retrieved. The file name will be something like PC01234.ASC. Write down this name. Next run GemCad. There is a "Shell to GemCad" selection in the File menu. Use GemCad's Read Text (R or F5 in the File Menu) to locate the file. If you use this a lot, you will accumulate a lot of these .ASC files. You can safely remove these since they are still archived in DataVue2's database files. QUESTION: When I try to use DataVue2's "Shell to GemCad" command, all that happens is that DVUE2 gives me the "GemCad not in path" error message. How do I get DataVue2 to run GemCad? ANSWER: The error message means that the system cannot find the executable GEMCAD.EXE file. If you use GemCad primarily for editing and printing designs from DataVue2, perhaps the easiest solution is to copy all of the GEM*.EXE files to the DVUE2 directory. Another solution is to edit the AUTOEXEC.BAT file with a text editor such as the DOS EDIT command or the Windows Notepad and add the directory containing GEMCAD.EXE to your path. You will add something like ;C:\GEMCAD To the end of the line that says PATH. Always use extreme caution when editing the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. You might also find it helpful to run GemCad before running DataVue2 and then minimize the GemCad window. Then GemCad will QUESTION: When I use DataVue2 to retrieve a file and use GemCad's Read Text command, I can't find the file. GemCad's file picker doesn't show any .ASC files that resemble PC01234.ASC. Where is the file? ANSWER: First of all, make sure you really did use the Read Text (R) command and not the Open or L&S Import command. (The Import command is obsolete since the DataVue2 files are in GemCad's .ASC format.) After you use the Read Text command, if you press Enter to bring up the file picker, so you should see ".ASC" at the end of the file specification at the top of the file picker screen. Got it but still no .ASC files? GemCad is probably not in the DVUE2 directory (folder). Find the selection in GemCad's file picker labeled "..\", highlight it and click on it. This will back up one level toward the root of the directory tree. Do this as long as there is a "..\" selection. You should then see a directory called "DVUE2." Click on it, and you should see the .ASC files. With Windows 3.1, you can create an icon that will run GemCad directly in the DVUE2 directory. To do this, select the DataVue2 Program Group, lighting up its title bar. In the Program Manager's File menu, select "New...". This will bring up a dialog box. Click on "New program item" and click on OK. This will bring up a dialog box. Fill it in as follows. (The directory names might be different on your system.) Description: GemCad Command Line: c:\gemcad\gemcad.exe Working Directory: c:\dvue2 This will create a GemCad program item in the DataVue group that will start GemCad in the DVUE2 directory. You can make similar icons for GemDot, GemPlot, and GemRay. QUESTION: How do I use GemDot, GemPlot, or GemRay to print or analyze a design from DataVue 2? ANSWER: GemDot, GemPlot, and GemRay only read GemCad's .GEM files and not the .ASC files. You must first convert the .ASC file to a .GEM file. First of all, retrieve the .ASC file with DataVue2. To do this, use the Get ASC command in the File Menu. Next, run GemCad (the Shell to GemCad command also in the File Menu). Use GemCad's Read Text (R or F5 in the File menu) to retrieve the file. Use GemCad's Save command to save it as a .GEM file. Then you can use GemDot, GemPlot, or GemRay as usual. END OF FILE