Diamond Version 5 User Manual: Printing, copying, and exporting structure pictures

Copying the Contents of the Structure Picture

This article in brief:
- Using the regular Copy command
- Using Copy Graphics command

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Using the regular Copy command

The contents of the structure window can be copied to the Windows clipboard. For that, assure that the graphics pane has the input focus (e.g. click once on the graphics pane) and then either choose the Copy command from the Edit menu, or push the from the standard toolbar, or use the "hotkey" Ctrl+C.

When flat representation is used, Diamond stores both bitmap and metafile format, in rendered representation only bitmap format. The bitmap uses the same size and color depth as the structure window. For a metafile, all objects outside the structure window will be clipped, too.

If flat representation is used, the metafile format is the format of choice, since it is scalable and can be used for printouts on high-resolution printers.

If you use rendered representation instead, you should save the structure picture as bitmap instead of copying it. When you save a bitmap, you have the opportunity to select an arbitrary higher resolution than the screen offers.

Please note: The regular Copy command also deposits Diamond document data into the Windows clipboard. This will appear in the target application in the "Paste special" dialog (when you run a "Paste special..." command in order to select an appropriate format from the Windows clipboard) as "Diamond 3/4/5 Document Object". If you simply run Edit -> Paste or Ctrl+V in the target application this will probably paste the Diamond document object rather than the bitmap or metafile. So it is better to run the Copy Graphics command in Diamond instead, which is described below.

Using Copy Graphics command

In general, the command Copy Graphics copies the contents of the current graphics pane to the Windows clipboard, so that it can be pasted by other applications. It is only available from the context menu of a graphics pane but not from the Edit main menu (as the genuine Copy command is). Here we talk about the structure picture pane but the graphics may also be a (distance) histogram, a diffraction diagram, etc.

On the target application side, the graphics is available as "Bitmap" and "Device-independent bitmap" in the "Paste Special" dialog window, if it is in rendered representation. If the structure picture is in flat representation, "Metafile" is available as third option. The advantage of the metafile is that it is scalable without loss of quality, whereas the bitmap may loose quality when it is stretched or decreased.

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Next article: Saving the Structure Picture as 2D Image File