Notice: On April 23, 2014, Statalist moved from an email list to a forum, based at statalist.org.
From | Alan Riley <ariley@stata.com> |
To | statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu |
Subject | Re: st: Graph export: "Could not initialize metafile" |
Date | Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:53:36 -0500 |
Dorothy Bridges (dbstata@gmail.com) reports that a colleague is seeing an error when they try to export a graph as an EMF file: > My .do file includes a command along the lines of: "graph export > mygraph.emf". The file runs fine on my computer and on the computers > of at least two of my colleagues. On a third colleague's computer, > however, we get the error message "could not initialize metafile." > This guy has the same version of Stata and the same version of Windows > as the rest of us. He is able to export to .wmf without trouble. Any > ideas? There are two cases in which Stata will report this error message when trying to export an EMF file: 1) There is no default printer driver installed on the Windows system, or the default printer driver has a bug or is refusing to load. 2) Windows refused to initialize the EMF file. This is very unlikely and would likely only arise in the event of a corrupt version of Windows. We have never seen an instance of a user encountering this. #1 is the most likely reason. Applications must create EMF files with respect to some device on the Windows system so that things like fonts and text and line spacing can be calculated with respect to a standard resolution. Stata and most other applications which support EMF files use the default printer as the reference device. Dorothy's colleague should ensure they have a default printer driver installed, even if a printer is not connected to their computer. If they already have such a printer driver installed, and are still receiving this error message, it can indicate a bug or error within the printer driver itself, and rebooting the computer can sometimes clear such an error. If Dorothy's colleague is unable to resolve the problem, they should contact Stata Technical Services at tech-support@stata.com, who will help them diagnose and correct the problem. Alan ariley@stata.com * * For searches and help try: * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/