Programming FPGAs: Papilio Pro
This Tutorial is Retired!
This tutorial covers concepts or technologies that are no longer current. It's still here for you to read and enjoy, but may not be as useful as our newest tutorials.
Toni_K 
Compiling the Code and Programming the Chip
Once all the code is written, syntactically correct, and compiles all the way through Implementation, it is time to generate the bitstream and program the Papilio Pro.
Luckily, the compiling the code is the easiest part of the whole tutorial. Assuming the code is right, you can just click the "Generate Bitstream" button in the Flow Navigator, and it will run through all the steps of the tool (Synthesis and Implementation) and generate the .bit file. If code is wrong in anyway, it will stop at the last known good state, throw error messages, which you will need to use to investigate and fix the code.
If all is well you will have a .bit file ready to go!
To program the Papilio Pro, we need the Papilio Loader to know where the .bit file is. For PlanAhead, where you saved your project, there is a <project_name>.runs/impl_1 (LnL_top.bit) directory. This directly contains the .bit file. It should have the same name as the top level module.
Copy this path, and open up the Papilio Loader (make sure the Papilio Pro is plugged into the computer). Leave everything in the default settings. We want to limit any potential JTAG issues. Click the "browse" button next to the Bistream text box, and paste the path. The bitstream file should appear.
Note: The Papilio Pro Loader will remember the last path used, so if you use the same project, you don't need to change anything in the loader.
Now that everything is good to go, click the program button! The textbox in the window will spew some diagnostic items, and it should tell you if it was successful.
Once this is done, go ahead and press the buttons!
Congratulations, you just programmed your first FPGA from a design!