[R] Monospaced font not shown correctly (Xubuntu 20.04)

[Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (SP)]

Dear Paul,

Thanks for the helpful reply. Indeed:

> fc-match Times
NimbusRoman-Regular.otf: "Nimbus Roman" "Regular"
> fc-match Helvetica
NimbusSans-Regular.otf: "Nimbus Sans" "Regular"

are OpenType fonts. Also:

X11(type="Xlib", family="mono")
plot(1)

works. So does

X11(family="Courier New") # type="cairo" by default
plot(1)

or

X11(family="Inconsolata")
plot(1)

Can I not override what is specified under X11Fonts() with? Because this does not work:

X11Fonts(mono="-*-inconsolata-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*")
X11(family="mono")
plot(1)

Best,
Wolfgang

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul Murrell [mailto:paul using stat.auckland.ac.nz]
>Sent: Wednesday, 20 January, 2021 0:37
>To: Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (SP); r-help using r-project.org
>Subject: Re: [R] Monospaced font not shown correctly (Xubuntu 20.04)
>
>Hi
>
>The switch to XUbunutu 20.04 may mean a switch to Pango > 1.44 (it does
>on Ubuntu 20.04), which means loss of support for Type 1 fonts (on
>Cairo-based graphics devices).
>
>The Courier fonts (the default for "mono" on Cairo-based devices) that
>you found are all Type 1 (.pfb) fonts.
>
>What does this give you (the matches for the default "sans" and "serif"
>on Cairo-based devices) ... ?
>
>fc-match Times
>fc-match Helvetica
>
>If those are .ttf or .otf fonts then that would explain why "sans" and
>"serif" still work.
>
>A workaround is to specify the family name for a non-Type-1 monospaced
>font, e.g., "Courier New" (?), or install a non-Type-1 Courier
>replacement (and specify that).
>
>Hope that helps.
>
>Paul
>
>On 20/01/21 3:48 am, Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (SP) wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> On my system (Xubuntu 20.04), using par(family="mono") is not rendered
>> correctly. The same issue was raised here:
>>
>> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/64207220/rendering-plot-in-r-with-
>mono-spaced-family-font-does-not-display-characters-any
>> <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/64207220/rendering-plot-in-r-with-
>mono-spaced-family-font-does-not-display-characters-any>
>>
>> Using par(family="monospace") does work:
>>
>> par(mfrow=c(1,2))
>> par(family="mono")
>> plot(1)
>> par(family="monospace")
>> plot(1)
>>
>> Also, when saving to pdf, it works fine:
>>
>> pdf("plot.pdf"); par(family="mono"); plot(1); dev.off()
>>
>> I have forced a refresh of the font cache:
>>
>> fc-cache -r --verbose --really-force
>>
>> And Courier is available:
>>
>>  > fc-list | grep Courier
>>
>> /usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/c0419bt_.pfb: Courier 10 Pitch:style=Regular
>> /usr/share/fonts/type1/texlive-fonts-recommended/pcrb8a.pfb:
>> Courier:style=Bold
>> /usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/c0611bt_.pfb: Courier 10 Pitch:style=Bold
>Italic
>> /usr/share/fonts/type1/texlive-fonts-recommended/pcrr8a.pfb:
>> Courier:style=Regular
>> /usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/c0582bt_.pfb: Courier 10 Pitch:style=Italic
>> /usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/c0583bt_.pfb: Courier 10 Pitch:style=Bold
>> /usr/share/fonts/type1/texlive-fonts-recommended/pcrro8a.pfb:
>> Courier:style=Italic
>> /usr/share/fonts/type1/texlive-fonts-recommended/pcrbo8a.pfb:
>> Courier:style=Bold Italic
>>
>> Any other ideas how to fix this?
>>
>> Best,
>> Wolfgang
>>
>> (happy to move this to R-SIG-Debian if this would be more appropriate)
>>
>>  > sessionInfo()
>> R version 4.0.3 (2020-10-10)
>> Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
>> Running under: Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS
>>
>> Matrix products: default
>> BLAS: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libblas.so.3
>> LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/liblapack.so.3
>>
>> locale:
>> [1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8
>> [4] LC_COLLATE=C LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
>> [7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C LC_ADDRESS=C
>> [10] LC_TELEPHONE=C LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
>>
>> attached base packages:
>> [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base
>>
>> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
>> [1] compiler_4.0.3 tools_4.0.3
>>
>>  > X11Fonts()
>> $serif
>> [1] "-*-times-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
>>
>> $sans
>> [1] "-*-helvetica-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
>>
>> $mono
>> [1] "-*-courier-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
>>
>> $Times
>> [1] "-adobe-times-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
>>
>> $Helvetica
>> [1] "-adobe-helvetica-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
>>
>> $CyrTimes
>> [1] "-cronyx-times-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
>>
>> $CyrHelvetica
>> [1] "-cronyx-helvetica-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
>>
>> $Arial
>> [1] "-monotype-arial-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"
>>
>> $Mincho
>> [1] "-*-mincho-%s-%s-*-*-%d-*-*-*-*-*-*-*"