[R] A trivial plot gives open circles as the plot char but another one gives me "q"s . . why is this?

[Philip Rhoades]

Brian,


On 2012-04-03 18:58, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Apr 2012, peter dalgaard wrote:
>
>>
>> On Apr 3, 2012, at 07:19 , Philip Rhoades wrote:
>>
>>> People,
>>>
>>> On my home computer with a real plot I get what I expect - open 
>>> circles as the plot character - on my work computer I get "q"s ! So I 
>>> tried a trivial test plot on the work computer ie:
>>>
>>
>> Argh. I have forgotten this before... There was a configuration 
>> issue leading to plotting symbols showing up as "q", but I can't 
>> recall the details. Possibly libpango-related (do you have it 
>> installed?)


At home, yes:

pango-1.29.4-1.fc16.x86_64
pangomm-2.28.3-1.fc16.x86_64

(I will need to check work).


> We were not told the device ....  This is well-known for pdf() and
> poppler-based PDF viewers so you could try the workaround in ?pdf.


Yes, I was outputting to pdf in all cases . . do you mean this 
workaround?:

"useDingbats
logical. Should small circles be rendered via the Dingbats font? 
Defaults to TRUE, which produces smaller and better output. Setting this 
to FALSE can work around font display problems in broken PDF viewers."


> I don't really see how this could happen on the default X11 device,
> as it draws circles rather than uses fonts.


Ah . . when I was testing on the problem work machine and doing the 
trivial test . . I was outputting to the screen . . so if I repeat the 
trivial test on the work machine (I am at home now) to PDF I should get 
the same problem as I do on the real script?

Thanks,

Phil.
-- 
Philip Rhoades

GPO Box 3411
Sydney NSW	2001
Australia
E-mail:  phil at pricom.com.au