[R] Problem with national characters in main, xlab, ylab with pdf{grDevices} / postscript {grDevices}

[Prof Brian Ripley]

'National': not my nation, and none is stated.  Somewhere in Eastern 
Europe ... Poland?

Short answer: you need to use a family which contains those glyphs 
(try family='NimbusSan': the default 'Helvetica' does not) *and* a 
viewer that uses fonts that do.

Longer answer: read ?pdf and ?postscript carefully, as they told you 
this and more.

Your example works correctly with that family for me on Linux, 
but not with OS X viewers.  It does not with the default family.

For people on Unix I would suggest the cairo_pdf() device as a 
possibly easier alternative since it usually embeds fonts.  On 
Windows and OS X you are at the mercy of what fonts cairo has access 
to.  That's all in the help, too.

On Sun, 7 Oct 2012, Magdalena A. Tkacz wrote:

> Hello.
>
> I'm trying to make some graphics with nationalized labels (pdf for use
> in LaTeX document).
>
>
> On console (displayed on screen) using  all looks ok:
> ----------------------------------------\/
> data<-rnorm(100)
> hist(data,main='Rozkład gęstości punktów', xlab='Wartość na osi y',
> ylab='Częstość występowania')
> -------------------------------------------/\
>
> But using:
> -------------------------------------------\/
> data<-rnorm(100)
>
> pdf('plik.pdf',encoding="CP1250.enc")
> hist(data,main='Rozkład gęstości punktów', xlab='Wartość na osi y',
> ylab='Częstość występowania')
> dev.off()
> --------------------------------------------/\
>
> It does not look fine ...

Actually it is just a binary file, and no viewer has been mentioned.

>
> Without specifying encoding:
> -------------------------------------------\/
> pdf('plik-wo-enc.pdf')
> hist(data,main='Rozkład gęstości punktów', xlab='Wartość na osi y',
> ylab='Częstość występowania')
> dev.off()
> ---------------------------------------------/\
> Almost does not have national characters. (Almost, because "ó" letter appears)
>
> Exemplary pdf file are here:
> https://www.drivehq.com/file/df.aspx/shareID10318887/fileID1167942261/plik.pdf
> https://www.drivehq.com/file/df.aspx/shareID10318887/fileID1167945977/plik-wo-enc.pdf
>
>
> I have read "Non-Standard Fonts in PostScript and PDF Graphics" by
> Paul Murrell and Brian Ripley in Rnews.
>
> I have also tried option with
> -------------------\/
> Sys.setlocale(category="LC_CTYPE", locale="pl_PL.utf8")
> -------------------/\
> but even in admin (run R as admin) in Win7 I received warning:
> -------------------\/
> "In Sys.setlocale(category = "LC_CTYPE", locale = "pl_PL.utf8") :
> Żądania raportów OS aby ustawić lokalizację na "pl_PL.utf8" nie mogą
> zostać wykonane"
> -------------------/\
> (translated in short : OS report request to set locale to "pl_PL.utf8"
> can not be done)
>
>
> Does anyone knows how to obtain pdf documents with acceptable quality?
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Regards
>
> -- 
> /|/| _ _ _/_ /_   _  /  / _ __
> /   |(/(/(/(/((-/)(/ (  /((/( /_
>     _/
> Magdalena Tkacz
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595