Electronic Edition of the ATP Rulebook in PDF Format

Revista Iberoamericana del ATP - Ao 4, Vol. 3, Nmero 4 - Diciembre de 2001

Alfredo Rifaldi

Ral Bianchi Lastra

TECHINT
C. Della Paolera 299
(1001) Buenos Aires, Argentina
Telfono (++54-11) 4318-4125
E-mail: tearia@techint.com

IITREE-LAT, Facultad de Ingeniera

UNLP
Calle 48 y 116 (1900) La Plata, Argentina
Telfono: (++54-221) 423-6695
E-mail: rbianchi@ing.unlp.edu.ar

Summary
In this article, a new electronic version of the ATP Rulebook in PDF format is
introduced. The criteria, on which this work is based, are also briefly described.
Introduction
Difficulties arising when getting a hard copy of the enormous ATP manual, usually
named as ATP Rulebook, are by all the program users very well known. The manual
becomes one of the very first inquires of new ATP users and its reproduction and
delivery is then the main difficult user groups have to deal with.
An electronic version of the ATP manual would allow user groups to deliver it between
its members more easily through electronic media such as CDs or Internet and thus
saving time and reducing costs. Even though there are some chapters of the manual in
electronic version of some of its chapters, it does not exist a complete one, thus the
problem remains unsolved.
On the other hand, there is not an up-to-date index of the manual neither. It would be
desirable an index that clearly determines which of the available chapter versions are
the latest ones.
To the question, why there is no electronic version of the manual, the authors found
another question: Why not trying to do it ?
The task
The authors were encouraged to face the task, as they got the necessary hardware and
software to scan the paper version of manual and convert it into PDF-files.
The very first step was to look for the latest versions of manual chapters, between all by
the time circulating versions in Argentina. After that, an index with the themes to be
included had to be settled.
From the revision of all available documentation, the lack of Chapters 18 and 20 was
detected. The first one belongs to the routine CABLE FITTER and it is not yet
available. Regarding chapter 20, no information could be found about the purposes, for
which this chapter might be reserved.
It has also been found more than one version for some topics. This is basically due to
the Leuvens attempt to rewrite the manual in electronic format during the years of
EMTP development at the Leuven University (Belgium). This task was however not

entirely completed and only some chapters are today available in electronic format,
which are known as LEC-chapters.
The problem with LEC-files is that they were written in WordPerfect 5 format, which
can not be correctly converted into Microsoft Word; figures mainly do not have an
acceptable quality after conversion. In means of the present work the authors decided
therefore to optically scan a printed version of LEC-files instead of converting them
from the WordPerfect format.
Howevr, both the original- and LEC-versions of the repeated chapters were included in
the collection as PDF-file, adding a LEC abbreviation in the file name to distinguish
ones from the others.
On the other hand, many of the latest upgrades on ATP were directly written in
electronic format and thus could be automatically incorporated into the new PDF
manual. At this point the authors would like to warn the readers about some page
number repetitions between these latest upgrades and older chapters optically scanned
from a paper edition. For example, this is the case of the rutine $PARAMETRES,
whose pagination coincides with that of Separate interactive plotting programs or the
rutine HARMONIC FREQUENCY SCAN with Special request cards having key
words.
The selected documentation was classified and separated into different groups, each one
being converted into a separate PDF file. This will allow a faster electronic distribution
reducing download times and will enable an easier way to keep the manual up to day.
The resulting PDF manual takes up 64 MB splitted up into 47 files. The largest file
takes up 3.6 MB and the smallest one 0,3 MB. An index in HTM format with hiperlinks
to the respectively PDF files was also created as part of the present work.
The PDF manual is available to all licensed ATP Users through the protected FTP
server of CAUE (Argentinier EMTP User Group).
The authors would like to point out that some problems could be found when printing
PDF files from Acrobat Reader 5.0, even though not with prior versions. To overcome
this problem just click the option Print as image in the Print Properties Window.
The authors wish to complete and continuosly update the present work, so that
comments and suggestions are welcome.