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

[Marc Schwartz]

on 06/30/2008 05:26 PM Roger Bivand wrote:
> 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, based upon ?x11, try setting the following environment variable:

   Sys.setenv(FC_DEBUG=1)

which may provide some tracing/insight into the font selection process 
when running code and perhaps offer some indications as to what font is 
being looked for and not found.

HTH,

Marc