Editing HP-GL (section)

== Examples ==
Typical HP-GL files start with a few setup commands, followed by a long string of graphics commands. The file was in [[ASCII]] ([[text file]]) [[File format|format]], for instance:

{| class="wikitable"
|+ An example HP-GL file
|-----
! Command
! Meaning
|-----
| {{mono|IN;}} || initialize, start a plotting job
|-----
| {{mono|IP;}}
| set the scaling points (P1 and P2) to their default positions
|-----
| {{mono|SP1;}} || select pen 1
|-----
| {{mono|PU0,0;}}
| lift Pen Up and move to starting point for next action
|-----
| {{mono|PD100,0,100,100,0,100,0,0;}}
| put Pen Down and move to the following locations (draw a box around the page)
|-----
| {{mono|PU50,50;}} || Pen Up and move to X,Y coordinates 50,50
|-----
| {{mono|CI25;}} || draw a circle with radius 25
|-----
| {{mono|SS;}} || select the standard character set
|-----
| {{mono|DT*,1;}}
| set the text delimiter to the asterisk, and do not print them (the 1, meaning "true")
|-----
| {{mono|PU20,80;}} || lift the pen and move to 20,80
|-----
| {{mono|LBHello World*;}} || draw a label
|}

The coordinate system was based on the smallest units one of the HP plotters could support, and was set to 25&nbsp;μm (i.e. 40 units per millimeter, 1016 per inch).
The coordinate space was positive or negative [[floating point]] numbers, specifically ±2<sup>30</sup>.