Support FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Before you do anything else, if running Manifold System Release 4.50, please download and install Service Pack 4.  Service Pack 4  Service Pack 4 repairs some minor bugs found in the System and also adds new features.  

New Feature: Technical Support Conversations reprint interesting conversations Manifold's Technical Support team has had on various topics.  While most conversations with Tech Support are brief and to the point, occasionally "mini-essays" appear that will be helpful to many Manifold users.

New Feature:  Step-by-step instructions from Technical Support's case files.  From time to time Technical Support creates a sequence of screen shots to send to a customer to resolve a question.  We've begun adding some of the more comprehensive examples to the web site:

• UTM Projection Notes
• Converting a DEM for use in 3D View Studio
• Entering a Formula and Exporting the Table to Access
• Find all Regions visible from the top of a 100 foot Tower
• Perform "Polygon in Polygon" Operations
• Compute Road Densities in a Grid
• Import a Projected ESRI .shp File
• Print Floating Point Labels as Rounded Values

I get an "Unrecognized database format" error when I try to open a coordinate-coded database.  Most likely you are working with Access 2000, which uses a different  ".mdb" format than previous versions of Access. Manifold Release 4.50 was released about six months before Access 2000 so 4.50 still uses the Microsoft Jet 3.5 engine. Access 2000 uses Jet 4, which introduces the new .mdb format.  You have two workarounds:  a) Save your Access 2000 files as Access 97 files and then read those from Manifold. Within Access 2000, one may save files in Access 97 format by using Tools - Database Utilities - Convert Database - To Prior Access Version. [Nice of Microsoft to bury this in an obvious place, isn't it? :-)]  b) open the Access 2000 file not as an .mdb in the files of type box but through ODBC. If you don't have an Access 2000 ODBC data sources on your machine this is done through the ODBC icon in your Windows control panel. It's easy to add if you have Access 2000 on your machine.

Your FTP site doesn't work.  It works fine.  Make sure you have the correct FTP addresses from from the various Free Maps or Free Manifold Stuff pages.  Manifold runs high security web sites that may require changes in the default settings of your browser or FTP program, or use of an FTP program that can handle higher security FTP sites.  See the Instructions document.

I am having trouble printing with the HP Deskjet 722c.  Go to the HP web site and get the latest driver.  As a user commented: "I went to the HP web site and downloaded ver.10.3 driver for the Deskjet 722c and voila! it prints now. FYI I am using a P2 233 with 64Mb of RAM on W98."

How do I create screen shots from Manifold? Create the map desired and zoom in to the view, etc, you wish to see.  Use the toolbar configurator to set full screen mode if desired.   There are two ways to copy an image:  use the Tools - Options - Save Image to File command to save a .bmp image to a file.  Alternately, use Tools - Options - Save Image to Clipboard or press the Print Scrn button on your keyboard to copy the screen to your Windows clipboard.  Launch your favorite graphics editor (we use mostly Adobe PhotoShop or Microsoft Photo Editor) and Paste the screen image into a new document.  

How do I install a Solver Package?  Where should the solver package files be placed?  Unzip the zipfile and place the resulting .mxz file in any convenient directory.  Launch Manifold and use Tools - Install Package to install that .mxz file.  The new solvers will appear in the Solvers menu.  Most solver packages are accompanied by a readme.txt file or help file. Discussion: Manifold includes the ability to install "solver packages," which add capability to the system.  Solver packages are ".mxz" files that may be placed in any convenient directory.  Most people place them somewhere in the main Manifold System installation directory.  The .mxz solver package file is an archive file that may contain more than one file for more than one solver.  For example, it may contain one or more .mns solver script files, Windows .dll files, perhaps a help file and other files that the creator of the solver package wanted installed on the machine.  When you install a solver package, Manifold takes the required files from the .mxz package and puts them wherever they are supposed to be.  After that, you don't need the .mxz file anymore (unless, of course, for some reason you need to reinstall Manifold and thus need reinstall the solver package).  Note that in NT 4.0, solvers are installed on a per-user basis.  This allows each user to have their own particular Manifold configuration.  In NT 4.0, a solver package must be installed under each user name who will use that package.  See the Help file: Menus and Controls : Tools Menu: Install Package / Create Package topic for more info on solver packages, including information on how you can create your own solver packages for distribution to other Manifold users.  People writing scripts will be interested to know that solver script .mns files (including those of the default solvers installed with 4.50) are in the scripts subdirectory of your main Manifold installation directory and may be read with Notepad.  They provide many examples of scripting using Visual Basic scripting in Manifold.

When I launch Manifold I don't see any solvers in my Solvers menu. Quite likely you are running on Windows NT and have logged in under a different user name than that used to install Manifold.  This is a feature of NT and not a Manifold issue.  When installing in NT you must install Manifold first as Administrator and then login as every user name that will be using Manifold and repeat the installation for that user.  Note that NT logins are different users if they are a domain login as opposed to a local machine login even if the login name is the same.

When I import SDTS Files, it does not import all of the objects. - When importing using SDTS, note that sometimes large areas are imported.  These are part of the SDTS map, which often include rectangular areas that cover an entire quadrant or even the entire map.  At times when people think that not all objects have been imported the true situation is that they simply do not see all of the objects because some are "below" large areas and so are not visible. This is especially true if objects are visible in only one quadrant of the imported SDTS map, etc. Use View - Display Navigator to turn OFF all areas from display so that the overlying areas do not hide objects below.

What is the format for latitudes and longitudes when importing a coordinate coded database using degrees - minutes - seconds option? - The latitude and longitude fields in the database being imported should be strings in the form " [-]DDDMMSS[.SSS] [L]" where:

- (minus sign) represents sign of value (optional, inverted by S or W modifiers),

DDD represents whole degrees (up to three digits),

MM represents whole minutes (two digits),

SS represents whole seconds (two digits),

.SSS represents decimal fraction of seconds (optional),

L represents NESW letter (optional, case-insensitive),

spaces (there are two: at the beginning and prior to NESW letter) represent zero or more spaces, tabs or newline characters.

Some valid inputs (within the double quotes... don't use double quotes) are:

"1203624W" (120 degs, 36 mins, 24 secs West),

"23624 W" (2 degs, 36 mins, 24 secs West),

"23624.52801" (2 degs, 36 mins, 24.52801 secs East or North),

" -240000.5" (24 degs, 0 mins, 0.5 secs West or South),

"5s" (5 secs -- not degs! -- South),

"200 a" (2 mins, 0 secs East or North -- 'a' is ignored).

Some invalid inputs are:

"W25" (starts with letter),

"2'33" W" (yields 2 secs East or North).

I'm having trouble getting GPS Console or GPS Tools for Access to see my GPS Device.  What GPS devices do you use? - Manifold reads very simple NMEA sequences issued by the GPS device... nothing tricky.  All interface issues have always been tracked down to one of four typically-occurring problems: 1) defective cable or cable inaccurately wired.  2) baud rate wrong or COM port not enabled.  (Check your motherboard BIOS to make sure the COM port used is enabled at the normal location)  3) GPS is not set up for version 2 NMEA for input and output. 4) GPS device is not transmitting NMEA sequences.  Some GPS devices require special configuration before they start transmitting information on their output port.  The Garmin 12, for example, won't transmit any information unless a route is set up and made "active."   If you simple turn it on and observe the location information, bearing to a waypoint, etc, displayed by the device you'd think it was working fine and would never guess it wasn't outputting anything to the output port unless a route was defined and made active.   "Gotcha's" like this are traditionally buried deep inside the GPS device manual or are simply undocumented and won't be revealed until you call the GPS manufacturer.  Most users at Manifold have Garmin 12XL's.  We like the low cost, high performance, and easy availability of pre-wired connection cables that include both a serial port and an automobile power plug.  Many other devices work fine, too.

I'm confused about getting DEM files, converting them, and/or using them in Manifold with 3D View Studio - We've written a lengthy, step-by-step example just for you. See the DEM Files and 3D View Studio page.

When I Import high resolution MapInfo .mid/.mif files, my maps sometimes look more angular than they do in MI - If you are working with very high resolution maps of small regions, the default Units2Degree settings in Manifold will be too low resolution and thus the imported maps will seem more "angular", because coordinates are being rounded up to lower resolution. To import MI maps in higher resolution: 1)  In step 2 of "New Map Wizard" set the scale factor to 1000 (default value is 1).  If you also check "Use Abstract Coordinates" you will get a map in abstract coordinates, otherwise you'll get a map in degrees with a Units2Degree factor increased by 1000.  2)  In the Tools - Options  dialog change  the "1 degree =" value to "10000000" instead of "10000".  Close the dialog and save the map by saving the workspace.   SP2 will add an enhancement so that step 2 will not be necessary.  Note: the cost of increasing the resolution of a map is that the maximum size of the map decreases.   The default settings provide maps larger than the entire Earth with resolution of about 10 meters at the equator.  Increasing the resolution by a factor of 1000 will provide resolution of one centimeter, but at a cost of  limiting the size of the map to less than the size of the Earth.  See the Help topic Accuracy and Units for a general discussion of issues. See the Tech Tip on Units and Accuracy for related discussion. 

My MapInfo .mif/.mid import takes a very long time.  What's up? - The short answer is that Manifold's mfd/mdb format is a pre-compiled format that takes a long time to create the first time; however, every time you work with the resultant Manifold files the work goes much faster.  We think this is a smart tradeoff.  See the Importing MapInfo .mid/.mif Files page for a longer discussion.

Do you have a converter for the 1999 NTAD from BTS? Get a free copy of the National Atlas Transportation Database (includes cool GIS files too, like Congressional Districts!) from BTS at www.bts.gov and download the free viewer/preprocessor from www.bts.gov/gis   Manifold provides the '96 files on our web site but you can use the '99 versions as well.  Use the BTS pre-processor (easy to use, fine software) to write the files out as MapInfo mid/mif files and then read those into Manifold.  This is fast and easy.  Note: don't use the version of the BTS software on the CD: use the version downloaded from their website since that fixes some errors in the CD version.  

How do I read Access 2000 .mdb files?  Read them using ODBC.  If you don't yet have an ODBC source in your system for Access 2000, it takes only a few seconds to add this using the ODBC Data Sources dialog that is in your Windows Desktop.  Except for specifying Files of Type "ODBC" instead of ".mdb" and then choosing the Access 2000 ODBC data source, all procedures are the same.  Note: Access 2000 uses a different database engine, Jet 4, than that used by Access 97 and about a million other Access/mdb compatible applications, Jet 3.  We're lucky we can get at Access 2000 using ODBC. Manifold System Release 5.00 uses Jet 4 which can auto-select between the Jet 3 and Jet 4 formats.

How do I convert ESRI ® files? Use the Release 4.50 SHP format importer accessible from File - New.  If you are loading data attributes and have not previously installed an ODBC DBF driver, you must install a DBF driver.  See our discussion on Importing SHP Attributes.  See also the Q&A in this FAQ regarding msxbse35.dll error messages.   See also the discussion on Exporting SHP Files.

When I import an ESRI .shp file it looks like a small black block, not a map. What's up? - When importing a projected shape file, you must use the abstract coordinates setting.  

How do I convert files from other formats? Use the various importing converters accessible from the File - New menu.  Note that most converters require operation on writable files within writable directories, and thus should not be used to convert files on non-writable media such as CD roms.  Converters currently available will convert the following formats into Manifold: DLG, SDTS, MIF, VPF, SHP, DXF, and TIGER.  To convert CSV and other text formats, use the import coordinate coded database functions.

I would like to use several different UTM zones at the same time.... How? See the small tech note on UTM Zones for an example.  (screen shots taken in Windows 2000, too!). 

I tried to convert DLG files from 1993 and the converter did not work. The DLG converter works only with the newer, DLG optional format.  USGS does not support the older format anymore.  Note that some DLG-O files contain line breaks and some do not depending on their origin.  The original DLG optional format spec requires line breaks, but some USGS documents say otherwise.  If you have DLG files without line breaks per record, use the "chop" program that can be downloaded at ftp.blm.gov/pub/gis (chop.zip). Run this command line utility with a "chop 80 infilename outfilename" command to insert \r\n symbols after each 80th symbol of the DLG file: this separates its logical records from each other. After this, import the resulting file into Manifold.  Note: it's rare to find DLG-O files without line breaks, but to save hassles for everyone we plan on adding auto-linebreak handling to the DLG importer in SP1 for 4.50 when the service pack is released.

I tried to convert SDTS files downloaded from USGS and had problems.  If you have not already done so, take a moment to work through the Help Examples topic "Free Maps via Internet" to make sure you are doing everything correctly.   More tips: SDTS files are often provided in a .tar.gz compressed format.  This is originally a UNIX format that must be properly de-archived.  If you use WinZip 7.0 to de-archive the files make sure the WinZip option "TAR file smart CR/LF translation" is NOT checked.  Alternately, use untgz.exe, a freeware utility downloadable from our utilities FTP directory, or some other "un-tar.gz" utility that works correctly. Note: The Manifold SDTS converter doesn't support importing more than one data set during a session, so don't include the Master Data Dictionary in the working directory as this may trigger an attempt at a multi-set import if multiple data sets are specified in the Data Dictionary.  The importer will work correctly if one deletes the Master Data Dictionary Files from the working directory.  Note: Service Pack 4 to Release 4.50 removes this restriction.  The upgrade to the SDTS converter in SP4 will ask which data set is to be imported.

I tried to convert SDTS files and got an "MFD file corrupted" error message.  This is the SDTS converter's way of telling you that it could not find any supported modules in the files you provided.  Manifold's SDTS converter handles vector data (such as digital line graphs in SDTS format) supported by Manifold.  Note that SDTS may be used by governments to encode data types, such as raster, that are not supported by Manifold.   For example, DEM SDTS is neither ordinary DEM nor a vector format... it is a raster format DEM in SDTS and is not supported by Manifold.  The full list of SDTS module types available within the Manifold SDTS converter is listed in the SDTS import wizard.   These are: Areas, Attribute Accuracy, Attribute Primary, Completeness, Composite, Data Dictionary Definition/Domain/Schema, Identification, Lineage, Lines, Logical Consistency, Nodes, Positional Accuracy, Registration, and Transfer Statistics.

When converting files I got a "CMFDFile:open : can't create output file" error. -  Manifold can't write the output file for some reason.  Check the File Locations specified in Tools - Options, and check the filename and folders you used to create the output file.  This is Windows file system stuff, not Manifold stuff.  Common errors:  

• File path is on read-only media such as a CD ROM.

• You don't have permission to write to the target drive/directory.
• There isn't enough space on the target drive.
• There isn't enough space on the drive containing the pagefile or TEMP directory.
• The target file is locked by another program (another copy of Manifold? best investigated with Task Manager).
• The filename contains illegal symbols (totally insane!)

I tried to load an international DEM and had troubles.  International dem files are usually in gtopo30.dem format.  When opening the file in the browse Open file dialog, change the Files of Type box to "Gtopo30 DEM files (.dem)".

I can't seem to use an SDTS DEM - Manifold reads SDTS and Manifold reads DEM, but STDS DEM is a slightly different format from either DEM or usual SDTS.  This is bizarre but true.  Manifold will support SDTS DEM in future releases or Service Packs.  For DEM files, read either standard USGS DEM or use gtopo30 DEMs.

I'm having problems converting VPF files from NIMA CDs  There is a vpf converter bug in Release 4.00 that is fixed by the service packs. Install the last 4.00 Service Pack to fix this.  Better still, upgrade to Release 4.50 - we no longer support 4.00.

My imported DXF files look weird.   There are two possible issues: 1) make sure you have SP1 for Release 4.50 installed since it repairs some bugs in the .dxf importer.  2) Make sure the "One DXF Coordinate unit equals ... Map units" has the correct conversion factor.  See the Accuracy and Units topic in the Introduction - Manifold Components book in the Help file.  If you change this to a very large number such as 1000000 and the map looks much better, this is probably the issue.

I don't see any projections except LatLon.  Are there other projections?   Release 4.50 provides all popular projections within geographic coordinates with translation between projections.   See the Tools - Projections menu.

How can I see the Latitude and Longitude position of the cursor? The X/Y readout in the lower right hand corner provides Latitude and Longitude readout when Map View displays a map that uses geographic coordinates.  It may be toggled between degrees-minutes-seconds and decimal degree readouts.

How can I print out a list of the Latitude and Longitude coordinates of a set of objects, say the selection? For a single object it's quickest to right mouse click on the object and select Object Coordinates this opens the Object Coordinates dialog, which will display the actual geometric coordinates of the object (in Table View, you could also highlight the record representing that object and click on the Edit Coordinates button). For a set of objects, the best way is to use the Output Selection Points utility solver, or use the equivalent Action in Table View.

I get an error message during Installation.  See the Installation page of this section.  Make sure not to have any programs running in background.   Some versions of Norton AntiVirus, for example, will interfere with the standard Microsoft/InstallShield installlation process (causing bus errors!) and should be switched off.

Installation went OK, and then I get a message about "ordinal not found in mfc..."  This is actually an issue related to third party programs operating during the installation process.  See the Installation page of this section.

I am trying to import data from a MS SQL Server 7.0 database using the import coordinate coded database option and Manifold will only display the names of real tables and not views.  This is a new bug within Release 4.5. A suggestion: create an Access database and link tables from SQL Server using ODBC ISAM, then use this database as a source of data for Release 4.5.  Release 5.00 supports views natively.

How do I select all the rows (or some part of rows) in Table View?  Table View uses ordinary Windows interface conventions.  Click on any row, then SHIFT-click on any other row and the rows in between will be selected.   Or, CTRL-click to highlight a row without de-highlighting others. Once a group of rows are selected, you can CTRL-click again on any field in those rows and change the value, and the value will thereby be changed in in that column for all the selected rows.  

The Table View calculator does not seem to work  The field calculator works on rows that have been highlighted (see above).  This allows you to apply the field calculator to only those rows you specify.  If you have not highlighted any rows, the calculator is not enabled.

I changed the background color, but the scale bar's background color did not change.   The scale bar has its own background color to allow you to distinguish it if desired.  Right mouse click on the scale bar to invoke the pop-up menu you can use to change this.

I am working with graphs (networks) and I want to use line styles to show direction, but when I format using the "Head" and "Tail" styles they do not appear  Head and Tail styles only apply to directed networks or graphs.   Manifold treats all sets of lines and points as undirected networks, unless there is a field named "Direction" in that map's data attributes.   To make a map direction,  go to the File - Properties dialog and click on the "Add Direction" button.  This will automatically add a "Direction" field to the data attributes for that map.  This field will be set up as an enumerated field with choices of Forward, Backward, Bidirectional and (none), with the default value of (none) for each record.  You can now go to table view and set the direction desired for each line.  To do this quickly, highlight all the rows in the table and using CTRL-click change the "Direction" field in one of the rows to your desired choice - that will change all the records.  If lines are being drawn "on the fly" by a solver or user script, the "Forward" direction means going from the first inflection point that defines the line to the last inflection point. 

How do I speed up rendering in very large maps? Will a faster graphics card help? The graphics card will affect speed only if you are doing 3D stuff with 3D View Studio or World View.  For 3D visualization a fast OpenGL graphics card is essential. For regular 2D maps, the predominant factor in rendering speed is the number of objects you have in sight. It's easy with very large maps to zoom out while forgetting  that an entire world's full of objects in full Digital Chart of the World detail is a huge number of objects. Tips to speed up rendering:  1) Turn off selection color.  2) If you don't need a million objects in sight (like, if you are just doing analysis or selection using Table View, etc) zoom into a small portion of the map so that fewer objects are on screen.  3) Turn off layers you don't need.  4) Use Display Navigator to turn off/on lots of layers at once so you don't end up re-rendering the map as you turn off/on each individual layer. 5) You can interrupt rendering by hitting the ESC key, resulting in a partially-rendered map.  That's often plenty if you just need to zoom to a different region.

While trying the examples,  I received the error "Selected collating sequence not supported by the operating system"  while importing the CENTROIDS_INFO.MDB file.  These kinds of error(s) arise while working with misconfigured database drivers or when their configuration is not in sync with Manifold database settings. The problem usually resides in Regional Settings. Be sure to have US English settings (if you're running NT, be sure it is the default setting for your machine - to change it you must have Administrator privileges). If you don't want to change all the regional settings, you can try to modify only part of them (start with 'decimal symbol' = '.').

I appear to be losing accuracy when importing coordinate coded databases. See the Tech Tip on Units and Accuracy.

Regarding the network import solver - The imported network changes shape depending on whether I use mile or meter units.   See the Tech Tip on Units and Accuracy.

When importing/exporting ESRI shapefiles, I get an cannot load msxbse35.dll error code = 1157 message.  ESRI shapefiles involve DBF format, a charming relic from the ancient days of personal computing. Manifold uses your Windows system's DBF drivers to read and write shapefiles.  msxbse35.dll is a Microsoft XBase driver serving DBase/FoxPro data sources (DBFs,etc.) that is normally found in the Windows\System\ directory (in '95) or in Winnt\System32\ directory (in NT).    Error 1157 means that the msxbse35.dll file cannot be found by the system.  This may be because it is not on the system or because it has not been registered properly.   Fix this by placing a copy of msxbse35.dll in the System (or System32 for NT) directory.  If you do not have msxbse35.dll, you may fetch it from our FTP site's support directory.   After copying this file to the System (or System32) directory, register it with "regsvr32 msxbse35.dll" from the command line.   If you do not have the regsvr32.exe program, you may fetch that as well from our FTP site's  support directory.  Both files are freely redistributable for use by Windows users. See our discussion on Importing SHP Attributes. 

I import TIGER/Line files into Manifold OK, but then have trouble exporting them to ESRI Shapefiles - Here's another charming relic of living-fossil formats like DBF.  See the Exporting SHP Files tech tip for a discussion of SHP limitations and workarounds.

I imported a 6 sided polygon from a DXF file. It is 6 line segments and I'm trying to turn this into a Manifold 'Area'. The problem is that in the NE corner of this polygon the line segments do not connect. How do I close polygons like this? - The simplest and most robust way is to use the Object Coordinates dialog to close the line and then run the Make Area From Boundary Lines solver. Here's how:  Right-click on the line and choose Object Coordinates to invoke the Object Coordinates dialog. A dialog comes up with the first item point selected. Press Add Point to insert a new point below the selected one (with the same coordinates). Use Move Down to move the new point to the end of the line. Press Apply to close the line and see the effect in Map View. Exit Object Coordinates dialog, select this line and run Make Area From Boundary Lines solver on the selection.

I'm having trouble installing a solver package -  See the Tech Tip: Problems Installing Solver Packages?.

My imported MapInfo mid/mif files are missing some attributes - Download and install Service Pack 4 Service Pack 4 fixes some bugs in the mid/mif converter.  

I am having trouble importing ESRI .shp files from a UNIX system - Download and install Service Pack 4 Service Pack 4 fixes some bugs in the ESRI .shp converter.  

When exporting to an ESRI shapefile, I get an error from the exporter complaining about a file lock - Download and install Service Pack 4 Service Pack 4 fixes some bugs in the ESRI .shp converter.  

The Manifold Export Tool crashes when trying to export to .shp format - The Tool tries to check most user errors but some really bizarre errors can crash the Tool.  Example: import a MapInfo .mid/.mif projected file using abstract coordinates into a Manifold mfd/mfd abstract file.  OK, so far.  Export to .shp using the Tool with abstract coords.  Still OK!  Now, try the same thing but within Manifold try to convert the abstract file into a geographic map using projection parameters different than that used in the original MapInfo projection. The result will be a file that Manifold is happy to display but which may contain physically impossible geographic coordinates.  When fed to the Export Tool such a physically impossible map may crash the tool.  To avoid such problems, don't use dumb formats like .shp or .mid/.mif to interchange projected maps.  Use them to interchange maps in geographic lat/lon formats and you won't ever have to decode what the original authors had in mind by way of projections.

What is the format for "Distort Grid" Files?  I would like to create my own - See the technical note on Distort Grid Format.

My printer output does not work the way I expect - Manifold does not interact with your printer drivers.  Manifold hands the print job to Windows which then contacts the printer driver. Errors in printer output are thus almost always indicative of bugs in the driver code or in Windows itself. Because printing from a vector application like Manifold sends a lot more information through Windows to the printer driver than do ordinary consumer programs or raster programs, print jobs that Windows creates at Manifold's request can trigger bugs either in the printer driver or in Windows that do not occur with ordinary consumer software or with raster-based graphics arts software.  Some tips for resolving printer issues:  1) Visit the printer vendor's web site and make sure you are working with their latest drivers for the version of Windows you are using.  2) Switch to Windows 2000 or Windows NT, both of which cure numerous memory management / driver bugs that arise in Win95 and Win98.  3) If you cannot switch to 2000 or NT, occasionally adding more RAM with Win95 or 98 will eliminate a printer driver bug because it will eliminate those Windows/driver bugs that arise when memory is paged. 4) Try changing the resolution or other settings in your printer setup.  5) Contact your printer vendor.  manifold.net will provide free software and advice to printer driver manufacturers to help them identify and eliminate bugs in their driver code.  Surprisingly few printer driver development teams ever test their drivers with a "big time" vector application.  Many printer drivers do not support the full range of Windows calls that a driver is supposed to support.  We can help them identify errors in both areas.

When I create labels for floating point data attributes, values I entered as 33.39 appear as 33.38999...  Release 4.50 does not support format rounding when printing double-precision floating point numbers to labels.  There is a hack that can be used to do this if you don't mind using Table View Calculator.  See the Rounding Hack topic.

I see strange numbers, like "-2147483648 -2147483648" when saving as a text file after using Morph Simplify to simplify objects  The "-124" numbers are separators.  Morph Simplify contains a bug that forces simplified objects to have the same number of internal inflection points as original objects. The output of Morph Simplify creates objects that are simplified, but they are filled with unused "separator" values.  To work around this problem we made a script that finishes work done by Morph Simplify by removing trailing separators (Remove Trailing Separators). To simplify objects, the process thus consists of three steps: select some objects, run Morph Simplify, then run the Remove Trailing Separators script. The script is available in ftp://216.15.110.75/solvers/ as "Remove Trailing Separators.mns"

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