Soil Profile, Borehole and Core-Logging PC Software

Changing Footer Block Keyword in Output "DRILLED BY" to "DUG BY"

That is complicated.  We can do it for you at R1000 + VAT, or you can do it yourself as follows:

1. Backup all files from C:\dot7000 in case of accidents.
2. From HotPlot, click the [Manual] button to open the PDF Manual.
3. From HotPlot, click the [Edit Set] button to edit the current Setup (SET) file.
4. In the manual, page 52, you will see “Changing the Title Block (PROVOCAB.ENG)”
5. In the SET file, that corresponds to the second box from the top (Default Vocabulary File)
6. So you would click the second “Edit File” button to edit PROVOCAB.ENG
7. In PROVOCAB.ENG, as the manual says, look for DRILLED BY : < 7> and change it to     DUG BY : < 7>, making sure that the colons still line up.
8. Now you must decide: Must this change apply all profiles, or only some?
9. If ALL, then you can save PROVOCAB.ENG, close it, and close the SET file with no changes.
10.  If only some, then you need to save PROVOCAB.ENG with a new extension, like PROVOCAB.DUG.  Then you need to save a SET file with a new name, and the extension DUG in the second box from the top (Default Vocabulary File).  Use that SET file when you want “DUG” to appear instead of “DRILLED”.  Use the original SET file when you still want “DRILLED”.

Note that this does not affect the keywords used in the header of the Input Text file.  You will continue to use “Drilled by: <name>”.  If you want to change that, too, see the Manual on page 50, “Changing Keywords in the Header Block (CONVOCAB.ENG)”.  You can Edit CONVOCAB.ENG using the third “Edit File” button while editing the SET file, and just add a synonym, i.e. “/driller/drilledby/< 7>” becomes “/driller/drilledby/dugby/< 7>”.  Then save CONVOCAB.ENG without changing its name.

Overlapping Sample Numbers in dotPLOT

Question: Can we avoid having the three samples that are shown below overlap on the legend because they were all taken from the same depth?

Answer: dotPLOT sees T38140 as a sample number (all uppercase text + numbers). It does not see 38140 as a sample number (No text, only numbers). That is why, when the samples are in separate notes, it prints the depth, 0.10m--3.10m, for Bassons and Shearbox, overprinting T38140. If we put them all in one note, with only one sample number and one depth, you get a clean printout of the sample number.

If you want three notes, then call each one “T38140 taken from 0.10m--3.10m” and it will overprint T38140 three times on the same spot.

Soil Symbols from Notes appear in Left Margin – Showing Refusal

Question: There is something funny going on at the bottom ends of some of the test pits. How to resolve?

Answer: dotPLOT does not expect to find soil or rock types in the notes. If it does, it confuses them with samples and tries to put the symbol in the left margin, where it puts sample and water table symbols.  There are two ways to deal with this:

1. Put a vertical bar before the depth in Note 1 (Refusal). The bar is used to get dotPLOT to ignore what follows. In this case, dotPLOT then cannot find a depth for the symbol, and leaves it out.
2. However, many users prefer to explicitly show refusal on the profile. dotPLOT provides a mechanism specifically for this, which I illustrate below. I have moved Note 1 into the descriptions section and made it the bottom layer, with a depth of 0.5+ (note the “plus”, “+”) (refusal having been at 0.5 m). That way, you get the symbol appearing at the bottom of the stave – for refusal, the thick black line on the right-hand edge of the symbols is omitted to show that we do not know how far down it goes.

Method 2 is the recommended one to use, as it gives the reader the visual information.

Special Characters

Question: How does one create letters like ë (Alt 137) and ê (Alt 136) in dotPLOT?  If I use it in txt format and then use HotPlot, it gives a funny letter.

Answer: In the HotPlot Text Editor, use the Character menu, which has the right special characters:

Edit Borehole Log Attribute Block Tables using Microsoft Excel

What if your PDF Files do not Show the Soil Symbols, or don't Print them?

Running dotPLOT directly from Windows

dotPLOT is a DOS program.  You can run it directly in a DOS Window by first running HotPlot and then clicking the button "Go to dotPLOT". If you want to run dotPLOT on its own without using HotPlot, in Microsoft Windows you can run it in a DOS Window as follows:

• Click Start > Run.
• Type in (or Browse for) C:\dot7000\PROFILE.EXE
• Click OK.
• dotPLOT will start and display a DOS screen.
• dotPLOT uses the function keys F1 to F5. See the User Manual for instructions.
• Press Esc to exit the program.

If you prefer, create a Desktop Shortcut pointing to C:\dot7000\PROFILE.EXE, starting up in C:\dot7000\

Acknowledgements

dotPLOT and HotPlot Setup is created using Inno Setup by Jordan Russell https://www.jrsoftware.org and InnoIDE by Graham Murt https://www.innoide.org

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