R help - Aug 2006 - mtext uses the typographical descender to align text

<>

Hello

One sometimes (quite often really ) marvel at the choice of defaults in 
R's graphic engine.
For some obscure reason, mtext uses the typographical  descender (bottom 
of letters) to align text. That is: "gG" will end up slightly higher 
that "GG". Depending on the font, "Q" might end up higher
than "O".

(for explanation of baseline & descender see: 
http://www.paratype.com/help/term/terms.asp?code=88)

Example:

y1 <- rnorm(30)
y2 <- rnorm(30)
group <- as.factor(rep(1:6, each=10))
y <- c(y1,y2)
testdata <- data.frame(group, y)
plot (y ~group, axes=F, xlab="why does R align the BOTTOM of the 
letters???" )
box()
mtext(expression(italic("Normal 1"))   ,1 ,  line=1, at=1)
mtext(expression(italic("Higher 1 "))  ,1 ,  line=1, at=2)
mtext(expression(italic("Normal 3 "))  ,1 ,  line=1, at=3)
mtext(expression(italic("Higher 2 "))  ,1 ,  line=1, at=4)
mtext(expression(italic("Normal 3 "))  ,1 ,  line=1, at=5)
mtext(expression(italic("Higher 3 "))  ,1 ,  line=1, at=6)


As the word "Higher" includes a descending letter (g), this factor
name
ends up higher.
I must say I have never encountered a software that uses the 
typographical descender instead of the baseline to align text .

Does anyone know how to make R use the baseline instead? Perhaps using  
adj or padj? Or do I have to do something silly as adding
"g", col=white
to each mtext-line to trick R into aligning the names.

Cheers
Andreas

Andreas Svensson <andreas.svensson at bio.ntnu.no> writes:
> <>
> 
> Hello
> 
> One sometimes (quite often really ) marvel at the choice of defaults in 
> R's graphic engine.
> For some obscure reason, mtext uses the typographical  descender (bottom 
> of letters) to align text. That is: "gG" will end up slightly
higher
> that "GG". Depending on the font, "Q" might end up
higher than "O".
> 
> (for explanation of baseline & descender see: 
> http://www.paratype.com/help/term/terms.asp?code=88)
<snip>
> mtext(expression(italic("Normal 1"))   ,1 ,  line=1, at=1)
<snap>
> As the word "Higher" includes a descending letter (g), this
factor name
> ends up higher.
> I must say I have never encountered a software that uses the 
> typographical descender instead of the baseline to align text .
> 
> Does anyone know how to make R use the baseline instead? Perhaps using  
> adj or padj? Or do I have to do something silly as adding
> "g", col=white
> to each mtext-line to trick R into aligning the names.
Notice that it only happens when plotting math expressions. Using 

 mtext("Normal 1"   ,1 ,  line=1, at=1,font=3)
 mtext("Higher 1 "  ,1 ,  line=1, at=2, font=3)
etc.

does not exhibit the same effect. 

I suppose the idea is that math expressions can grow arbitrarily tall
or deep, and that the design decision (wise or not) has been to align
on the bounding box of the whole enchilada. For a workaround, if you
do need to do it with expressions, notice the phantom() construction.

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  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
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