XnView Software

Somehow, I missed those suggestions from last year. Thank you. It seems to have worked.

Also, in the picture I've attached, you can see (in the upper right corner) how light the text on my CAL file is.

I'm receiving blueprints from a customer in .CAL format. I need to convert to PDF. However, the files are coming in EXTREMELY light and hard to read. IS there a way to "darken" them up prior to converting to PDF? I've already tried adjusting the DPI from 72 to 200 to 600 to 1200 (via Image > Set DPI ...

To your first point: Yes, 1 bit per pixel. When zooming in, the letters are very well defined.

Also, I just tried the "Image>Map" suggestions. Nothing changed. Clicking on "Automatic Levels", "Automatic Contrast", and "Normalize" did NOTHING to my image.

Is there something I need to do BEFOREHAND to my CAL file so that these adjustments can be made?

Thanks for the suggestions, but they don't seem to work on my .CAL files. When I first go into Image>Adjust>Levels (this is in regular XnView, NOT MP), all the options are greyed out. By first clicking on Image>True Colors or Image>32 bit, THEN the "Adjust>Levels" options become available.
However ...

Just as an aside....

I cannot make this work in XnViewMP. Not even manually. 64-bit version of XnViewMP on Win 7 64-bit OS.

Thank you, cday.

cday, Wow. It worked. Manually, anyway. DPI was at 72. I changed to 200 (Image > Set DPI) manually. Did it to both X and Y. Saving the CAL file as a PDF (FAX compression, 100% quality) generated a readable, reasonably-sized PDF file. Way to go!

But .... I couldn't get those settings to "stick" with ...

I'm going to try cday's suggestions. Will report back later this AM.

No change using XnView MP, 64-bit. PDFs from the "wider" CAL files are still blank. XnViewMP-64 can create JPG's, same as the regular XnView version.

I am on a 64-bit OS. Win 7. I will try the MP 64-bit version and report back. Thanks.

Here's one of the blank PDF's.

(Removed by author)

See the attachment please. Maybe this will explain my problem better.

Interesting .... these "wider" CAL files --- I can export them as JPEG's. That's through the "File | Export" menu. And the JPEG's turn out fine. I only run into issues when I try to "Save As" a PDF.