[R-sig-Fedora] Pango/cairo and symbol fonts

[Roger Bivand]

On Mon, 30 Jun 2008, Peter Dalgaard wrote:

> Marc Schwartz wrote:
>> on 06/30/2008 04:26 AM Roger Bivand wrote:
>>> Excuse my asking here than on R-help, but it may be a Fedora
>>> question. On Fedora 7, I'm running a fresh R 2.7.1 built from source,
>>> usually in en_GB, but also tried in en_GB.UTF8. Running
>>> example(plotmath) generates lots of:
>>>
>>> Pango-WARNING **: shape engine failure, expect ugly output. the
>>> offending font is 'Symbol Not-Rotated ...'
>>>
>>> Setting:
>>>
>>> x11(type="Xlib")
>>>
>>> relieves the problem, but I'd like to use cairo if possible. I have
>>> both urw-fonts and liberation-fonts installed. I'm pretty sure it is
>>> my F7, not R, and would be grateful for any advice. It's the same
>>> story with the png device.
>>>
>>> Roger
>>
>> Roger,
>>
>> Check capabilities() to be sure that 'cairo' shows as TRUE.
>>
>> If it shows FALSE, be sure to install the cairo and cairo-devel RPMs
>> and re-build R so that cairo support is available. You may just need
>> the 'cairo-devel' RPM if the 'cairo' RPM is already present.
>>
>> Also, as an aside, F7 went EOL on June 13.
>>
>> If that is not helpful, post back.
> I suspect that is isn't helpful. If cairo is not there, you'd just get
> Xlib and no warnings (and no features either).  So my suspicion is that
> something needs to be upgraded beyond the F7 level, which could get a
> little sticky.

Right, cairo is TRUE, so it is most likely a fonts issue. I'm mostly RHEL 
4/5, but also F7, and looked at F9 to upgrade, but have a production 
project on F7. This means that upgrading is not an option in the short 
term, while working cairo with a symbols font would be desirable. For the 
time being I can hold on old PDF/PNG if there is no known alternative.

Roger


>
>

-- 
Roger Bivand
Economic Geography Section, Department of Economics, Norwegian School of
Economics and Business Administration, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen,
Norway. voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 95 43
e-mail: Roger.Bivand at nhh.no