Editing Plotter (section)

===Contemporary uses of pen plotters===
[[File:Plotter_printer_homemade_crop.jpg|thumbtime=20|thumb|Homemade plotter using stepper motors and a ballpoint pen to draw.]]
In the mid-to-late 2000s artists and hackers<ref name="R3"/><ref name="R4"/> began to rediscover pen plotters as quirky, customizable output devices. The quality of the lines produced by pens on paper is quite different from other digital output techniques. Even 30-year-old pen plotters typically still function reliably, and many were available for less than $100 on auction and resale websites. While support for driving pen plotters directly or saving files as HP-GL has disappeared from most commercial graphics applications, several contemporary software packages<ref name="R5"/><ref name="R6"/><ref name="R7"/><ref name="R8"/> make working with HP-GL on modern operating systems possible.

As use of pen plotters has waned, the [[wide-format printer|large-format printers]] that have largely replaced them have sometimes come to be called "plotters" as well.