Graphics File Formats

RATS allows you to save graphs to disk in a variety of formats for later viewing or printing, or for importing into another application, such as a word-processor. With a graph window active, simply choose File>Save As... or File>Export... or the toolbar icon to save the graph to a file. You can also use the GSAVE instruction to save graphs as they are generated.

RGFZ (RATS Graphics Format, Zipped)

The default file-type choice is Estima's RGFZ (added with 11.0). Use RGFZ if you want to be able to re-open the graph in RATS for viewing, printing, or exporting to another format. You can also add a graph in RGFZ format to a Project using Project>Add a Window to add a displayed window or Project>Add a File for a graph that has already been saved. See Graph Windows for more information.

RGFZ replaces the older RGF format. RGF is a binary format which, while portable between different operating systems, was not necessarily portable between different version number for RATS. RGFZ is a (zipped) JSON format which will be much easier to expand with additional features.

RGF (RATS Graphics Format)

RGF is the older RATS Graphics Format, which has been superseded by RGFZ. A graph has to be generated specifically for RGF to be saved in that format (as the features for RGF and RGFZ aren't the same). While not recommended, you can set your preferences to generate the older format by checking off the "Use New RGFZ Format?" box on the Graphics tab—the only reason to do it would be to share a graph with someone with an earlier version of RATS. You can also switch programmatically by using the RGF option on the GRPARM instruction.

PostScript (Portrait, PORTRAIT on GSAVE) and PostScript (Landscape, LANDSCAPE on GSAVE)

These save the graphs in Adobe PostScript® format, using either a Portrait or Landscape orientation. This is generally the best choice if you use a PostScript printer and your target application can import PostScript graphs. This provides the highest quality image and, if you know the PostScript language, you have the option of editing the PostScript file yourself.

If you use the Portrait orientation, graphs will be imported "right-side-up," with the top of the graph pointed towards the top of the page. If you use the Landscape orientation, graphs will be imported with graph rotated 90 degrees to the right (the top of the graph will face the right side of the page). To keep the proportions reasonable portrait mode will, by default, use only about the half of a page. In general, there is no good reason to use the "landscape" view—the proportions of the graphs are identical, virtually all word processors are able to rotate a picture themselves, and it's possible that a full page graph will need a different rotation when published depending upon whether it's on an even page or odd page.

PDF (Portrait, PDF on GSAVE) and PDF (Landscape, LPDF on GSAVE)

These save in the Adobe PDF® format in portrait and landscape modes respectively. See the description in the paragraph above for the difference between the two orientations.

Windows Metafile (WMF) (Windows only)

This is a standard Microsoft Windows graph format. For Windows users, this is the best choice to use if you aren't outputting to a PostScript printer, or if you need to be able to see the image in your document (the PostScript file RATS generates does not include a bitmap preview image). This is available only under Windows, both as a "Copy/Paste" format (it may be shown as "GDI Metafile" in a target application) and as an export format.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics, PNG on GSAVE)

This is a standard "bitmap" format, which keeps a "snapshot" of the screen as it exists. It's generally best used at its original size—while software can often do a reasonable job of resizing, some detail will get lost when the size is changed (particularly if you try to increase the size, which tends to produce fuzzy characters).

BMP (Windows Bitmap)

This is the standard bitmap format for Windows, which is available only as a copy/paste option and only under Windows—PNG has the equivalent information, and is more broadly usable (and available on all platforms).

JPEG (Portable Network Graphics, JPEG or JPG on GSAVE)

This is similar to PNG, in effect a digital photograph of the contents of the screen.

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format, GIF on GSAVE)

This is an older graphics format which has a simpler color space than JPEG, but should be fine for RATS graphics.