# [R] metapost device in R (again ;-)

Tamas Papp tpapp at axelero.hu
Fri Jul 11 17:13:56 CEST 2003

Hi,

I read the 2000 thread on a MetaPost device in R. If I understand
correctly, the main problem with the concept is that R wants the device
driver to give back information on the size of strings/labels.

To the bet of my knowledge, MetaPost _does_ make it possible to
measure the bounding box of text (see section 7.3: Measuring text in
the MetaPost manual). For example, one could get the size of the
bounding box of btex $\int_a^b x^2$ etex -- would that be enough to
make an implementation possible? Or are the size of individual
characters and kerning information necessary?

Another question: can graphics devices be implemented solely in R (ie
without writing C code)? I realize that it will be much slower, but
first I would like to see how it works before writing in C. What
source files should I be looking at?

You may ask why I should bother about using Metapost. Well, I'd like
my TeX documents to be more consistent typographically, and MP has
quite a lot of useful features (such as the possibility to include its
eps output in LaTeX directly, EVEN when generating PDF files with
latexpdf). But the biggest bonus would clearly be the ability to
typeset math formulas nicely. (I realize that this would require one
to start a MetaPost process, but IMO the benefits would be worth the

Is anyone else interested in a MetaPost device?

Thanks,

Tamas

--
Tamás K. Papp
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