R devel - Nov 2009 - Problem with pdf graphics device

This code does not work as expected:

pdf("foo.pdf")
x <- 1:20
y <- sin(x)
plot(x,y)
dev.off()

Instead of little circles at the points I get the letter 'q', and this
happens for the default pch, pch=1, pch=21. If I set pch='o' I
get the circles, but of course they are not centered. The problem
occurs with pdf viewer and with printing under Linux,
R 2.10.0.

Everything works as expected if I use other display devices.

On Nov 5, 2009, at 11:15 AM, Dominick Samperi wrote:
> This code does not work as expected:
>
> pdf("foo.pdf")
> x <- 1:20
> y <- sin(x)
> plot(x,y)
> dev.off()
>
> Instead of little circles at the points I get the letter 'q', and
this
> happens for the default pch, pch=1, pch=21. If I set pch='o' I
> get the circles, but of course they are not centered. The problem
> occurs with pdf viewer and with printing under Linux,
> R 2.10.0.
>
> Everything works as expected if I use other display devices.

See ?pdf and read through the "Note" section.

This was just covered on r-devel only days ago:

   https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2009-October/055357.html

HTH,

Marc Schwartz

Marc Schwartz <marc_schwartz <at> me.com> writes:
> 
[snip]
 
> See ?pdf and read through the "Note" section.
> 
  While I was reading this I noticed two minor typos
in pdf.Rd.

  These patches are against the latest SVN devel version.


*** pdf.Rd.orig	2009-11-05 14:37:44.000000000 -0500
--- pdf.Rd	2009-11-05 14:38:24.000000000 -0500
***************
*** 199,205 ****
    problem is much more likely to be in your viewer than in \R.  Try
    another viewer if possible.  Symptoms for which the viewer has been at
    fault are apparent grids on image plots (turn off graphics
!   anti-aliasing in your viewer if you) and missing or incorrect glyphs
    in text (viewers silently doing font substitution).
  
    Unfortunately the default viewers on most Linux and Mac OS X systems
--- 199,205 ----
    problem is much more likely to be in your viewer than in \R.  Try
    another viewer if possible.  Symptoms for which the viewer has been at
    fault are apparent grids on image plots (turn off graphics
!   anti-aliasing in your viewer if you can) and missing or incorrect glyphs
    in text (viewers silently doing font substitution).
  
    Unfortunately the default viewers on most Linux and Mac OS X systems
***************
*** 224,230 ****
    On some systems the default plotting character \code{pch = 1} is
    displayed in some PDF viewers incorrectly as a \code{"q"}
    character.  (These seem to be viewers based on the \samp{poppler} PDF
!   rendering library). This may be due to incorrect or incomplete mapping
    of font names to those used by the system.  Adding the following lines
    to \file{~/.fonts.conf} or \file{/etc/fonts/local.conf} may circumvent
    this problem.
--- 224,230 ----
    On some systems the default plotting character \code{pch = 1} is
    displayed in some PDF viewers incorrectly as a \code{"q"}
    character.  (These seem to be viewers based on the \samp{poppler} PDF
!   rendering library.) This may be due to incorrect or incomplete mapping
    of font names to those used by the system.  Adding the following lines
    to \file{~/.fonts.conf} or \file{/etc/fonts/local.conf} may circumvent
    this problem.