[R] multiframe in postscript

[Prof Brian D Ripley]

On Sun, 17 Dec 2000, Chong Gu wrote:

> 
> I was hoping that the following specification
> 
>     postscript(file="fig.ps",height=2,width=4)
>     par(mar=c(5,5,2,2)+.1,mfrow=c(1,2),mex=.6)
> 
> would yield the same scaling effect as
> 
>     postscript(file="fig.ps",height=2,width=6)
>     par(mar=c(5,5,2,2)+.1,mfrow=c(1,3),mex=.6)
> 
> but the fact is that the 'mfrow=c(1,2)' yields smaller plotting frame
> and bigger font size.  Some experiments show that the device scales
> differently for two or less rows (columns) and three or more rows
> (columns).
> 
> Is this a feature or "bug"?
> 
> I am running R-1.2, but I doubt the version matters here.

It is a feature, copied from S.  It is only the font scaling (and
everything that depends on it) which depends on the mfrow/col layout.
Here's the C code exerpt (in par.c):

        if (nrow > 2 || ncol > 2) {
            dd->gp.cexbase = dd->dp.cexbase = 0.66;
            dd->gp.mex = dd->dp.mex = 1.0;
        }
        else if (nrow == 2 && ncol == 2) {
            dd->gp.cexbase = dd->dp.cexbase = 0.83;
            dd->gp.mex = dd->dp.mex = 1.0;
        }
        else {
            dd->gp.cexbase = dd->dp.cexbase = 1.0;
            dd->gp.mex = dd->dp.mex = 1.0;
        }

So you want to set cex=0.66 in the first case, I think.  (The details
are not quite the same as S, as far as I recall.)

-- 
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 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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