Home  >  Support


Cenon Questions and Answers

2015-07-24



 Apple Mac OS X


Mavericks, Yosemite (OS 10.9, 10.10): Cenon Documents are displayed empty.
Reason: Apple removed crucial functionality without announcing it.
Solution 1: Upgrade to Cenon >= 4.0.3
Solution 2: To keep Cenon (<= Version 4.0.1) running, you have to turn off Cenon's graphics cache:
Menu "Cenon" -> "Preferences" -> "Disable Caching"
[2013-10-28]

Lion (OS 10.7): the Library folder is invisible in Finder.
Solution: You can still access library files from the Open-Panel of Cenon. If desired, you can also link the library folder to your Documents folder.
[2012-03-15]

Snow Leopard (OS 10.6): The image functions of Snow Leopard were completely rewritten by Apple, this created some minor problems with Cenon (fixed since Cenon 3.9.1).
Solution: Update to current version of Cenon.
[2010-02-25]

With GhostScript version 8.5x the import of PostScript does not work any more.
version 8.56 and 8.57 have been reported to create problems with Cenon, something changed in GhostScript...
As a quick solution you should install an earlier version of GhostScript (gs). Also, a parallel installation of an earlier version is possible, if it is copied into the directory /usr/local/bin/ [2007-06-09]

Crash on Power-PC when importing PostScript and PDF.
Please Update to Cenon version 3.82 from December 29th. This will fix the issue. [2006-12-29]

The PostScript and PDF-Import doesn't work, what can I do?
Cenon needs GhostScript (gs) installed in the directory '/usr/local/bin/gs' or '/usr/bin/gs'. If you have installed a ghostscript version to some other path, you have to link or copy the file 'gs' to the search path of Cenon. [2004-10-19]

Lines are not visible in printings or the Preview.
Mac OS-X does not display lines with zero line width. You have to set a line width in the Cenon (Stroke) Inspector.
With Cenon 3.70 you can set a default line width in the preferences. [2005-08-16]


 Linux / GNUstep


Cenon on Ubuntu fails to start
There are several possible reasons for this:

  1. You didn't install the GNUstep libraries
    Solution: install the GNUstep libraries
  2. Cenon has been installed in a different location than expected (usually when installing RPM packages).
    Solution: Copy the installed Cenon files to the correct location on Ubuntu, which can be
    /usr/lib/GNUstep/... or /usr/local/lib/GNUstep
    For example:
        /usr/lib/GNUstep/Applications/Cenon.app
        /usr/lib/GNUstep/Library/Cenon
  3. An unfit combination of Cenon versions and libraries
    Try to start Cenon from a terminal shell with one of the following commands (depending on the install location) and take a look at the resulting messages:
        openapp /usr/lib/GNUstep/Applications/Cenon
    or
        openapp /usr/local/lib/GNUstep/Applications/Cenon
[2011-11-16]

After installing Cenon (Debian/Ubuntu packages) on Ubuntu or Debian I get the following Alert-Box in Cenon:
"You need to install the Cenon Library!"

Cenon is running and most functions should work already. The only thing that is wrong is, that Cenon is searching it's files (like device files for import) in a different location, then they were installed. This seems to be a bug in the Ubuntu packages.
Solution: The Debian/Ubuntu location for the Cenon library files is:
    /usr/lib/GNUstep/Cenon or /usr/local/lib/GNUstep/Cenon
However, for some reason Ubuntu installed the files in
    /usr/GNUstep/.../Library/Cenon
All you have to do, is move the folder 'Cenon' to the correct Ubuntu location, so that it will be found by Cenon.
[2010-09-05]

After installing Cenon (RPM packages) on Ubuntu or Debian I get the following Alert-Box in Cenon:
"You need to install the Cenon Library!"

Cenon is running and most functions should work already. The only thing that is wrong is the install location, making Cenon search it's files (like device files for import) in a wrong location.
Solution: The Debian/Ubuntu location for the Cenon library files is:
    /usr/lib/GNUstep/Cenon or /usr/local/lib/GNUstep/Cenon
However, the RPM location for the Cenon Library files is:
    /usr/GNUstep/.../Library/Cenon
All you have to do, is move the folder 'Cenon' to the correct Ubuntu location, so that it will be found by Cenon.
[2010-09-03]

None of the imports, Gerber, HPGL, DXF, DIN works
The reason seems to be a bug in GNUstep that is not registering the defaults.
Solution: Go to the Preferences of Cenon and select the Import-Preferences. Here, select the PopUp menus for all kinds of imports explicitly, even if they seem to be selected already. Now, the import is working. [2010-09-05]

When starting Cenon I get the following error:
NSRangeException: Index 0 is out of range 0 (in 'objectAtIndex:')

This sounds like your GNUstep libraries doesn't fit the Cenon binary.
As an example, GNUstep GUI 10.3 is not binary compatible to previous versions. A solution is to acquire the right version of the GNUstep Libraries. Another solution is to compile Cenon yourself against the installed GNUstep libraries.
[2006-11-18]

When starting Cenon the following error message appears:
loading model file /usr/lib/GNUstep/.../Main.gmodel... recursion encountered handling uncaught exception

Check, if Cenon has been installed in the correct path (/usr/lib/GNUstep/...). Debian uses a different install directory.
If Cenon is installed correctly, then probably your GNUstep GUI library is not compiled the same way as Cenon (for example debug versus stripped). Especially the Model bundle, loading the interface files. It helps to recompile GNUstep GUI (make clean + make).
[2006-11-18]

The RPM package manager shows failed dependencies for libgnustep-base.so.x.xx and libgnustep-gui.so.x.xx."
The GNUstep libraries have to be installed in /usr/GNUstep/System/Library/Libraries (Debian: /usr/lib/GNUstep...).
If this is the case, you can safely install Cenon without dependency check:
rpm -Uhv --nodeps Cenon*.rpm
[2006-08-14]

When I run Cenon I get: "Cenon[#####] No fonts found!"
When using the Art backend of GNUstep you have to install extra fonts (nfont packages). You can find the basic fonts on the vhf server: gnustep-fonts-0.1.1-1.noarch.rpm
[2004-11-20]

I am encountering an error when I try to run Cenon using the 'Art' backend. The application throws up an 'Uncaught exception'.
You are using an old version of the GNUstep libraries. There was a bug with the menu fonts in combination with the art backend.
A current snapshot version of the GNUstep libraries (February 2004 or later) should do it.
[2004-05-13]


  OpenStep Tips


A double click on a file opens the file in the text editor and not in Cenon
Select the file in the File Viewer of the Workspace. Then go to the Tool Inspector (Pop Up Menu Tools) of the Workspace (not Cenon), and move the Cenon symbol to the left. Doing this you set Cenon as default application for the selected file type.

After a check for disks, no disk symbol appears in the shelf of the File Viewer
Disks are not displayed when their file name is missing or not appropriate. You can find your Disk in the root directory (/).

Transport of Cenon files to DOS disks
Before you can copy a Cenon file to a DOS disk, you have to truncate the file extension (.cenon) to 3 characters (.cen). To use the file you have to change back the extension to .cenon.
If possible, you should use Unix or Apple formatted disks to transport files.
The prefered way to transfer files is a LAN (Ethernet).

Killing a process
If it happens that you have a process hanging around as a zombi, you can kill this process. Go to the process list of the Workspace using the menus 'Tools - Processes'. If you have to kill Cenon, you must kill the output process (controller) too.


Import


The imported DXF graphic is displayed in a wrong size
Go to the preferences of Cenon to change the unit of the DXF import. The DXF format has no defined unit, that's why you have to tell the importing program the unit of the file.

The size of imported fonts is not correct
You can tell the exporting program to flatten all text to a path.
If you are using HPGL or DXF, the cause is that no font information is inside the file, so Cenon will use the default font. If you are using PostScript, it is possible that the desired font is not installed on your system. In the latter case you can install the font as Type 1 font.

Graphics which are generated using Freehand contain intersecting lines
In Freehand don't use the output option Split Complex Paths. Otherwise Freehand splits large paths into several smaller paths to limit the complexity of generated PostScript files.

I can't import HPGL files
The extension of HPGL files must be .hpgl, or .plt. The case (lower case) is important on Unix systems!


I can't import PostScript-Files generated with Corel Draw.
Go to the preferences of the EPS export of Corel Draw and disable the setting for the image header (?). If you have this option enabled Corel Draw will add garbage to the PostScipt file.

PostScript-Files from other Windows programs (ex: Enrout, Eurocut) can't be imported.
This is basically the same problem as above with garbage before and after the actual PostScript data. To remove the garbage from the PostScript file, simply load the file into a text editor and remove everything before "%!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0" and after the end of the PostScript file (ex: "%%EOF"). The coming Cenon release 3.90 will provide an automatic solution of this common issue. Example of a correct PostScript file: [2009-01-26]
%!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0
%%BoundingBox: 20 265 604 580
...
%%EOF

The imported PostScript-File is empty.
Some applications export vector data as embedded Raster-Image (Bitmap) in the PostScript file. This kind of PostScript is ok for printing, but unusable for importing vector data. [2009-01-26]


E-Mail Hotline


If your question is not answered in the User's Guide or the FAQ, please send us an eMail. If you write an email with a problem, try to be as detailed as possible in your description. A small example of what goes wrong may help us too.

E-Mail to the Cenon Support



© Cenon GmbH - the sense of motion