I'm having some confusion over the coordinate system after using pairs. I'm not interested in the content of the actual pairs plot, although the number of pairs seems to matter a bit. I'm purely interested in knowing where my points will be plotted on the device. However, after using pairs, the par information (omd, fig, plt, and usr) don't reflect what points does. For example: pairs(iris[1:5]) par(xpd = NA) points(0 - 0.01 * 1:100, 0 - 0.01 * 1:100) points(0 - 0.01 * 1:100, 1 + 0.01 * 1:100) points(1 + 0.01 * 1:100, 0 - 0.01 * 1:100) points(1 + 0.01 * 1:100, 1 + 0.01 * 1:100) par(c("omd", "fig", "plt", "usr")) The resulting plot shows that the corners of the are approximately 0.05 user coordinate units from the boundaries of the plot region. According to par, though, there is a margin around the plotting region that is clearly not symmetric and does not correspond to around 0.05 units. If we use pairs(iris[1:2]) and repeat the rest, the corners are now 0.02 user coordinate units. par provides the same information as before. So: 1. How do I figure out where coordinates I give to points will display on the figure? 2. More generally (for my own understanding), why does the par information not do what I expect? Do I have some fundamental misunderstanding of the arrangement of plotting, figure, display, and margin regions within the device? I'm using R 2.5.1, and this behavior occurs on a fresh R console. Thanks! Oliver -- Oliver Soong Donald Bren School of Environmental Science & Management University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5131 805-893-7044 (office) 610-291-9706 (cell)