I want to continuously record the most recent 200 frames to a PDF file while my Processing program runs (and outputs to the screen) for hours. How can I lop off the earlier frames while keeping the most recent 200 in the PDF? At my wits end---any help greatly appreciated!

or 200 single pdf files...

Thanks for the suggestions. 200 PDF files or 200 pages in a PDF would work just fine if there were some way of merging the 200 into a single PDF image. (So you know if there is???)

It doesn't really have to be a PDF, but does have to be a vector file (so PNG won't work). My goal here is to obtain, from a continuously running program, a sort of screen capture (but I can't use the various "save" functions because they give me a rastor file---too small and fuzzy)---which I can then print out large size---say, 30" x 40".

PDF is great for this, and the saveOneFrame function is perfect EXCEPT it just saves one frame (surprise) and doesn't give me the history that's on the screen.

Am I missing some obvious work-around? Thanks----

you can easily do that with adobe acrobat ( not acrobat reader) just select all of them and select rightclick "merge to one pdf file" like philho said, there are probably some freeware programms that does that too

I totally missed the fact you needed to combine all the documents into one compound image!
With PDF format, maybe it can be done, if knowing intimately the format, removing intermediary headers/footers, etc. But I doubt such combining is available in current softwares (can be surprised, though), as this operation is... unusual for most documents.
It might be slightly easier in SVG format (there are tools to manipulate XML) but still quite some work.

The PDF reference has an example of having "Many Frames Into One File". The difficulty, if I understood correctly, is that you need to bufferize the frames, dropping the oldest ones, so that when something happens (key or mouse pressed, etc.), you output the previous frames to file.
This one is hard...

Well, I'm really glad that at least I'm not the only one who thinks this is hard! I it's possible to open the PDF files in Illustrator and copy one file onto another----but 200 of them----arghh. I'm not familiar with SVG format.

My current approach is something like this: While the porgram is running, when there's a keypress, I reset frameCount to set it back by 200:
frameCount = (frameCount - 200);
Then I use beginRecord to open a PDF file and start recording. Later, I tell it to end recording when frameCount equals frameCount + 200.

This looks like it might work, because when I reset frameCount, the moving image on the screen also resets itself---it goes back a little and re-does what it just did (it looks weird).

BUT---then the program barfs and tells me that it has run out of memory. I look at the PDF file, and there's nothing in it. So, either this is just a hair-brained approach anyway, or I'm not implementing the endRecord properly.

If I get it to work, I'll post it. And if anybody has any other thoughts or can get this to work, let me know. Thanks!

Ahhh---I see. Fantastic. I'll try it. Many thanks!