[R-lang] Re: Embedding phonetic symbols in R

Wed Jul 20 17:24:35 PDT 2011

Hi Donald,

in Windows, you can't just say call tryCatch(par(family="Doulos SIL"))
because Doulos SIL is not in the font database. You first have to
include it into that database, as in my example below
windowsFonts(IPA="TT Doulos SIL")

That said, your example call here puts IPA symbols in a R graphics
plot. I have no difficulties doing that. It's producing a pdf output
from that that doesn't work.

As a side note, it will probably be very difficult to send examples
back and forth between us when we're not using the same OS. From what
I know, producing pdf's from R with IPA symbols is simply not a
problem. But in Windows it is. But I can hardly believe I'm the only
linguist out there using R in Windows!?

Best
Sverre

On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 8:08 PM, Donald Derrick
<dderrick@interchange.ubc.ca> wrote:
> I use a mac, so I can't be sure this works in windows, but...  Here's my very simple demo:
>
> tryCatch(par(family="Doulos SIL"),error=par(family="serif"))
> plot(1,1,xlab="\u027D",ylab="\u027E")
>
> It is a nonsense graph, but it works.
>
> Even better, you can just type in the fonts in unicode (here's hoping they show up in the thread right when I email it!)
>
> tryCatch(par(family="Doulos SIL"),error=par(family="serif"))
> plot(1,1,xlab="ɽ",ylab="ɾ")
>
> DD
>
> On 2011-07-20, at 4:45 PM, Sverre Stausland wrote:
>
>> Hi Donald,
>>
>> if someone else has the same problem later, I think it would be a good
>> idea to keep this thread alive in R-lang. Here's an easy reproducible
>> example which does not work for me:
>>
>>> windowsFonts(IPA="TT Doulos SIL")
>>> tryCatch(par(family="IPA"),error=par(family="serif"))
>>> pdf("C:/test.pdf",family="serif")
>>> plot.new()
>>> plot.window(xlim=c(0,1),ylim=c(0,1))
>>> text(x=.5,y=.5,labels="\u027D",family="IPA",cex=5)
>> Error in text.default(x = 0.5, y = 0.5, labels = "<U+027D>", family = "IPA",  :
>>  Invalid font type
>> In addition: Warning messages:
>> 1: In text.default(x = 0.5, y = 0.5, labels = "<U+027D>", family = "IPA",  :
>>  font family not found in PostScript font database
>>
>> Are you using R in Windows, by the way?
>>
>> Sverre
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 7:26 PM, Donald Derrick
>> <dderrick@interchange.ubc.ca> wrote:
>>> Put it at the beginning of the program in question.  It is just a parameter that selects the fonts used in future pdf or quartz outputs.
>>>
>>> If that does not work for you, email me direct and I'll take a look at your particular example.
>>>
>>> DD
>>>
>>> On 2011-07-20, at 4:21 PM, Sverre Stausland wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Donald,
>>>>
>>>> could you be a little bit more specific? When creating a pdf, when
>>>> should this call be made?
>>>>
>>>> Best
>>>> Sverre
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Donald Derrick
>>>> <dderrick@interchange.ubc.ca> wrote:
>>>>> I just use code like:
>>>>> tryCatch(par(family="Doulos SIL"),error=par(family="sans"))
>>>>> If you don't like/have "Doulos SIL", pick another font.  Same with the
>>>>> fallback font.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> DD
>>>>>
>>>>> On 2011-07-20, at 4:06 PM, Bill Poser wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I hesitate to recommend this technique, but if you are really stuck you
>>>>> could try directly hacking the postscript as described in this post from the
>>>>> time before R supported Unicode:
>>>>> http://babel.ling.upenn.edu/phonetics/archive/Unicode%20in%20R%20Text.htm
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 12:50 PM, Sverre Stausland <johnsen@fas.harvard.edu>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Roger,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've actually seen that thread before, but the only thing I extracted
>>>>>> from it was "use Cairo", which I did ... There are some remaining
>>>>>> details to be sorted out, I just don't know what they are.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Sverre
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 3:47 PM, Levy, Roger <rlevy@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi Sverre,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You might find the following thread useful:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>  http://pidgin.ucsd.edu/pipermail/r-lang/mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/ling-r-lang-l/2010-October/000110.html
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> For me a crucial part of the puzzle was using the cairo_pdf and cairo_ps
>>>>>>> drivers (kudos to Paul Metzner for pointing this out).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Best & let us know if that helps!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Roger
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Jul 20, 2011, at 1:33 PM, Sverre Stausland wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm sure I'm not the only Windows user out there trying to embed IPA
>>>>>>>> symbols in R graphics and then make a pdf out of it. If anyone knows
>>>>>>>> how to do that, I would appreciate some help. Because I have not
>>>>>>>> succeeded.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Here is what I have tried. I'm creating a plot in R with IPA phonetic
>>>>>>>> symbols, using the standard
>>>>>>>> font Doulos SIL
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> (http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?item_id=DoulosSILfont&_sc=1)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> When attempting to create a pdf of this plot in R using the pdf()
>>>>>>>> function, I will get the following error messages:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> pdf(file="C:/~myplot.pdf")
>>>>>>>>> plot.default(my.x,my.y,type="n")
>>>>>>>>> windowsFonts(IPA="TT Doulos SIL")
>>>>>>>>> text(my.x,my.y,labels=my.data$words.with.IPA,family="IPA")
>>>>>>>> Error in text.default(my.x, my.y,  :
>>>>>>>> Invalid font type
>>>>>>>> In addition: Warning messages:
>>>>>>>> 1: In text.default(my.x, my.y,  :
>>>>>>>> font family not found in PostScript font database
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I've been advised that I can resolve this problem using the Cairo
>>>>>>>> package for R. But I have not succeeded. Here is my call:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> library(Cairo)
>>>>>>>>> CairoPDF(file="C:/~myplot.pdf")
>>>>>>>>> plot.default(my.x,my.y,type="n")
>>>>>>>>> windowsFonts(IPA="TT Doulos SIL")
>>>>>>>>> text(my.x,my.y,labels=my.data$words.with.IPA,family="IPA")
>>>>>>>>> dev.off()
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It produces a pdf file, but all the IPA symbols come out as boxes.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Please note that R has no difficulties producing this plot in its
>>>>>>>> graphic window with IPA symbols. It's only the pdf output I'm having
>>>>>>>> difficulties with.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Any help would be appreciated! Further details follow below.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> sessionInfo()
>>>>>>>> R version 2.13.1 (2011-07-08)
>>>>>>>> Platform: i386-pc-mingw32/i386 (32-bit)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> locale:
>>>>>>>> [1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
>>>>>>>> [2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
>>>>>>>> [3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
>>>>>>>> [4] LC_NUMERIC=C
>>>>>>>> [5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> attached base packages:
>>>>>>>> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> other attached packages:
>>>>>>>> [1] Cairo_1.4-9
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
>>>>>>>> [1] tools_2.13.1
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Sys.getlocale()
>>>>>>>> [1] "LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
>>>>>>>> States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
>>>>>>>> States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252"
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Roger Levy                      Email: rlevy@ucsd.edu
>>>>>>> Assistant Professor             Phone: 858-534-7219
>>>>>>> Department of Linguistics       Fax:   858-534-4789
>>>>>>> UC San Diego                    Web:   http://idiom.ucsd.edu/~rlevy
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>