[R] Encapsulated postscript and the family argument

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Mon, 25 Aug 2003, Patrick Connolly wrote:

> > version
>          _                
> platform i686-pc-linux-gnu
> arch     i686             
> os       linux-gnu        
> system   i686, linux-gnu  
> status                    
> major    1                
> minor    7.1              
> year     2003             
> month    06               
> day      16               
> language R                
> 
> 
> >From my investigations, it would appear that if I wish to make an eps
> file instead of a 'normal' postscript file, I can specify paper as
> 'special' and onefile to FALSE which will then mean the bounding box
> is used as the size.
> 
> However, what wasn't obvious to me was that it is necessary to specify
> what family to use.  If no family is specified, the default family
> does appear to be used, BUT, the resulting file is no different from a
> 'regular postscript' file.  The value in ps.options does not seem to
> be used in the same way.

The family used is nothing to do with EPS.  The code is always
EPS-conformant (but may not be a single page), but the *header* is only
sometimes, the times being documented.

> Is this intentional behaviour?

Is what, exactly?  Consider

postscript(width=8, height=6, horizontal=FALSE)

postscript(file="Rplots.eps", width=8, height=6, horizontal = FALSE, 
onefile = FALSE, paper = "special")

The first does not give an EPS header: the second does.  Try it and see:  
`family' has nothing to do with it.  But for the record, if family is set 
in ps.options and not in the postscript call it is used.  Try
ps.options(family="Times") and repeat those calls.

A long-timer such as yourself really, really should know not to send in
vague statements not backed up by the code used to leap to these 
conclusions!

BDR

-- 
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 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595