[R] Changing font in boxplots

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2007, G Iossa, School Biological Sciences wrote:

> Hi John,
>
> Thanks so much for such a quick reply.
> I have tried to set all to Times font running
>
> par(font.lab=6) (not 4, maybe this is a local setting on my machine?)

'6' is a setting specific to certain devices on Windows.  You should 
really be using font families (which are quite new and so not used in 
many of the introductions).

 	par(family="serif")

will change the default for all the text on subsequent plots to be in 
a serif font, which on the windows() device is (by default) Times.

The R posting guide does ask you to tell us your OS, so that points like 
this do not have to be guessed at.

> but now the boxplot shown has the x and y labels in Times New Roman and the
> x and y axis still in Arial. Any idea why R is not setting those in Times?

Because you did not ask it to.  The font of axis annotation is set by 
font.axis, not font.lab (which is controls title()'s xlab and ylab and 
nothing in axis()).  See ?axis and ?par, both of which make this clear.

John Kane has claimed that what inline pars are used by boxplot() is 'not 
clear from ?boxplot', but the lack of clarity is his, not in the 
documentation. ?boxplot refers you to ?bxp, and that spells out exactly 
which inline pars are used.

>
> Thanks a lot for your advice,
> Graziella
>
> --On 08 August 2007 09:16 -0400 John Kane <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
>> I don't know if boxplot will accept a font argument.m
>> From ?boxplot it is not clear.
>> You may need to set the par() command before the
>> boxplot
>>
>> Example:
>> par(font.lab=4)
>> boxplot(mass ~ family, data=mydata, ylab="mass %",
>> xlab="family",las=1, cex.axis=1)
>>
>> --- "G Iossa, School Biological Sciences"
>> <G.Iossa at bristol.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I am very new to R and this might be a simple
>>> question but I have looked
>>> everywhere you suggest before writing to you.
>>>
>>> I am trying to change font type from san-serif to a
>>> serif (Times New
>>> Romans) on all labels and axis of my boxplot. I have
>>> used this function in
>>> other plots before, e.g.:
>>>
>>> plot(residuals~lnlifespan, data=mydata, pch=psymb,
>>> font=6, xlab="ln
>>> reproductive lifespan", ylab="residuals ln mass",
>>> font.lab=6, cex=1.5,
>>> cex.axis=1.5, cex.lab=1.5)
>>>
>>> and found that font.lab or font.axis=6 gives Times
>>> font. However, when I
>>> try for boxplot:
>>>
>>> boxplot(mass ~ family, data=mydata, ylab="mass %",
>>> xlab="family",
>>> font.axis=6,  font=6, par(las=1), cex.axis=1)
>>>
>>> it does not work (R does not give any warning
>>> messages). I have also tried
>>> family="Times" but without success. Any idea of why
>>> is not doing it and
>>> what I can do to get Times font on my boxplot?
>>> I run R on Windows.
>>>
>>> Thanks a lot,
>>> Graziella
>>>
>>>
>> *****************************************************
>>> Dr. Graziella Iossa
>>>
>>> Mammal Research Unit
>>> School Biological Sciences
>>> University of Bristol
>>> Woodland Road
>>> Bristol BS8 1UG, UK
>>>
>>> E-mail: G.Iossa at bristol.ac.uk
>>> Tel 0044 (0)117 9288918
>>> Fax 0044 (0)117 3317985
>>> http://www.bio.bris.ac.uk/research/mammal/index.html
>>> http://www.bio.bris.ac.uk/people/Iossa.htm

-- 
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