Chromatography Forum

For anyone interested, this is the link to the 450-page HP Chemstation Macro Programming Guide at the Agilent Website. It is available for download...free. My previous attempts to locate this manual through Google searches have been unsuccessful, as any links I found were expired or no longer worked. This, however, is the correct link and does work.

http://www.chem.agilent.com/Library/use ... MACROS.PDF

Hope this helps someone!

Cheers!

Of what specific use would this document serve to GC users? I am not intending to be smirky, but just curious since all the apps on Chemstation are routine. Any special need for this item?

Jumpshooter

The same reason that Microsoft supply Visual Basic programming with Excel and Access. Sometimes customers need a little more than the standard options. The macro programming will allow you to set up complex reports if there is a need to.

Gas man

It's easy to say all of the apps in Chemstation are routine if that's how you use Chemstation. However, the many versions of Chemstation out there are much more robust if you understand and utilize the Macro Programming Language, the framework of the software. Macros can be written to simplify tasks, create new reports, change the structure of old reports, just about anything you can think of. Here's an example.

One of the best custom macros I ever saw was designed to be used on sample data where hydrocarbon range values were reported. In older Chemstation versions peak areas for ranges could exceed the software's hexidecimal limitations, resulting in the report of a very large 'negative' number. There were two ways to solve this problem. First, an analyst could integrate smaller portions of the range and add the values together to get a complete range value. The other, simpler approach, was the macro, which when activated, cut the range into infinitely small chunks, added all the values together, replaced the value in the report, then removed itself from the system.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you can think it up, you can probably accomplish it with a Chemstation macro.

Thanks for this well-stated reply.

Thanks for the link to the macro manual. I downloaded it and will gut thru it if need be.

I have a question that relates to our lab's attempt to revamp the way we handle multiple (~20) TPH ranges based on only 2-3 calibrations (diesel, oil, +- kerosene). Analysis is by GC-FID ~EPA8015.

Is anyone aware of existing macros that will allow RT ranges for TPH to be conveniently (close to one button) updated based on the RTs of their bounding n-alkanes. For example, assume that I have analyzed on that GC-FID an alkane std that contains all of my needed n-alkanes, that I have all of these alkane compounds in my ChemStation method, and use existing CS menu options to update these n-alkane RTs in my method. if one definition of TPHdiesel is <C10 to >C23, where the < means -0.1 minute and > means +0.1 minute, is there a macro that allows me to update this (and the other ~20 TPH) RT ranges using the existing alkane RTs?

A related question, does a macro exist to update the calibration responses of the ~10 TPHdiesel based ranges rather than using existing menus and update calibration responses one level at a time?

FYI, we use 1701 BA, CA, DA & EA revs of ChemStation.

emh