[R] pdf font embedding --- again

[ivo_welch-rstat8303@mailblocks.com]

Thank you---as always.

still, I remain font-desparate.

I would love to use the fonts from my book, but [a] I cannot figure out 
how to do this yet even in the R postscript device; and [b] I am using 
the R pdf device, not the postscript device.  I guess if I can solve 
[a], then I can rewrite all my graphics creations now into the 
postscript device, and replace the dev.off() with something that 
follows it with ps2pdf.  The following attempt, however, does not work:

   afmfiles <- c("lbr.afm", "lbd.afm", "lbi.afm", "lbdi.afm", 
"lbms.afm");
  Lucida <- postscriptFont("Lucida", metrics=afmfiles);
  postscript(file="test.ps", family=Lucida);
  l<- 40:80;
  plot(l,l,pch=l);
  dev.off();

By the way, if I try  " postscript(family=afmfiles);" then I do not get 
an R error, but R 2.1.0 segfaults, which is probably not desirable.  
This occurs even if there is no .afm file in the current directory.


Can I make a suggestion to the R team?    It would be nice if I could 
specify a pdf() device parameter that says "choose font settings to 
embed all fonts" (i.e., do not use fonts that cannot be embedded, 
either).  Something that guarantees me that I get a figure that I can 
give to someone that is fully specified.   Right now, accomplishing 
this is not easy to figure out, and perhaps not even possible.  Yes, in 
the list of font families that R recognizes are some fonts that do not 
seem among the 13 standard fonts (such as URWbookman).  moreover, if I 
choose it as my pdf font family, it is smart enough to use a different 
symbol file ('StandardSymL'), which I hope is also open and not adobe.  
If so, they could be used in principle.  How do I get R to embed 
URWbookman?  ZapfDingbats always seems to be included, so I hope this 
is open and embeddable.

more help would be highly appreciated.

Regards,

/iaw
---
ivo welch

-----Original Message-----
From: Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk>
To: ivo_welch-rstat8303 at mailblocks.com
Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Sent: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 17:07:14 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Re: [R] pdf font embedding --- again

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 ivo_welch-rstat8303 at mailblocks.com wrote:

 >
  > dear R wizards--- I would like to do some book-on-demand printing at 
a
 > popular printer named lulu, but lulu requires inclusion even of the
 > basic postscript fonts. Interestingly, my book itself does not need
  > the 14 base acrobat fonts, only the embedded R figures do. Of 
course,
 > I really would like to get pdftex to embed the fonts, but how to do
 > this is not obvious either. [This method seems to be what the R help
  > page is indicating... The software including the PostScript plot 
file
 > should either embed the font outlines (usually from '.pfb' or '.pfa'
 > files) or use DSC comments to instruct the print spooler to do so.)

 Why not use the fonts your book does use in the figures? (That's how
 my books are done.)

  > So, I would really, really like to embed the necessary fonts with 
the R
 > figures. I first reread the discussion in this mailing list about
 > (eps) font embedding earlier this year. This was ultimately not very
  > helpful. First, I do not know how to instruct my embedding program 
to
 > include the fonts that R figures want. Second, I already start with
 > the pdf device, so distilling eps files is not a good option--and it
 > would seem a bit crazy to first use the wrong output device
 > (postscript), then ship my files over to a windows machine somewhere
  > that has distiller installed, run distiller by hand, then ftp them 
back
 > to my linux machine---just for getting the fonts embedded.
 >
 > Is it impossible to get R to embed the necessary fonts in its pdf
 > output?

  Yes, as it has no access to them. They are not Open Source. You may be 
able to use URW clones, depending on their licensing conditions.

 -- 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