postscript {grDevices} | R Documentation

## PostScript Graphics

### Description

`postscript` starts the graphics device driver for producing PostScript graphics.

The auxiliary function `ps.options` can be used to set and view (if called without arguments) default values for the arguments to `postscript`.

### Usage

    postscript(file = ifelse(onefile, "Rplots.ps", "Rplot%03d.ps"),
               onefile = TRUE,
               paper, family, encoding, bg, fg,
               width, height, horizontal, pointsize,
               pagecentre, print.it, command,
               title = "R Graphics Output", fonts = NULL)

    ps.options(paper, horizontal, width, height, family, encoding,
               pointsize, bg, fg,
               onefile = TRUE, print.it = FALSE, append = FALSE,
               reset = FALSE, override.check = FALSE)

### Arguments

`file` | a character string giving the name of the file. If it is `""`, the output is piped to the command given by the argument `command`. If it is of the form `"|cmd"`, the output is piped to the command given by ‘`cmd`’. For use with `onefile = FALSE` give a `printf` format such as `"Rplot%03d.ps"` (the default in that case).
`paper` | the size of paper in the printer. The choices are `"a4"`, `"letter"`, `"legal"` and `"executive"` (and these can be capitalized). Also, `"special"` can be used, when the `width` and `height` specify the paper size. A further choice is `"default"`, which is the default. If this is selected, the papersize is taken from the option `"papersize"` if that is set and to `"a4"` if it is unset or empty.
`horizontal` | the orientation of the printed image, a logical. Defaults to true, that is landscape orientation on paper sizes with width less than height.
`width, height` | the width and height of the graphics region in inches. The default is to use the entire page less a 0.25 inch border on each side.
`family` | the initial font family to be used, normally as a character string. See the section ‘Families’. This defaults to `"Helvetica"`.
`encoding` | the name of an encoding file. Defaults to ‘`"ISOLatin1.enc"`’ unless the locale is recognized as corresponding to a language using ISO 8859-{5,7,13,15} or KOI8-{R,U}, in the ‘`enc`’ directory of package grDevices, which is used if the path does not contain a path separator. An extension `".enc"` can be omitted.
`pointsize` | the default point size to be used. Strictly speaking, in bp, that is 1/72 of an inch, but approximately in points.
`bg` | the default background color to be used. If `"transparent"` (or an equivalent specification), no background is painted.
`fg` | the default foreground color to be used.
`onefile` | logical: if true (the default) allow multiple figures in one file. If false, generate a file name containing the page number and use an EPSF header and no `DocumentMedia` comment.
`pagecentre` | logical: should the device region be centred on the page? – defaults to true.
`print.it` | logical: should the file be printed when the device is closed? (This only applies if `file` is a real file name.)
`command` | the command to be used for “printing”. Defaults to option `"printcmd"`; this can also be selected as `"default"`.
`append` | logical; currently disregarded; just there for compatibility reasons.
`reset, override.check` | logical arguments passed to `check.options`. See the Examples.
`title` | title string to embed in the file.
`fonts` | a character vector specifying additional R graphics font family names for font families whose declarations will be included in the PostScript file and are available for use with the device. See Details.

### Details

`postscript` opens the file `file` and the PostScript commands needed to plot any graphics requested are written to that file. This file can then be printed on a suitable device to obtain hard copy.

A postscript plot can be printed via `postscript` in two ways.

1. Setting `print.it = TRUE` causes the command given in argument `command` to be called with argument `"file"` when the device is closed. Note that the plot file is not deleted unless `command` arranges to delete it.
2. `file=""` or `file="|cmd"` can be used to print using a pipe on systems that support ‘`popen`’. Failure to open the command will probably be reported to the terminal but not to ‘`popen`’, in which case close the device by `dev.off` immediately.

The `file` argument is interpreted as a C integer format as used by `sprintf`, with integer argument the page number. The default gives files ‘`Rplot001.ps`’, ..., ‘`Rplot999.ps`’, ‘`Rplot1000.ps`’, ....

The postscript produced for a single R plot is EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) compatible, and can be included into other documents, e.g., into LaTeX, using `\includegraphics{<filename>}`. For use in this way you will probably want to set `horizontal = FALSE, onefile = FALSE, paper = "special"`.

Most of the PostScript prologue used is taken from the R character vector `.ps.prolog`. This is marked in the output, and can be changed by changing that vector. (This is only advisable for PostScript experts: the standard version is in `namespace:grDevices`.)

`ps.options` needs to be called before calling `postscript`, and the default values it sets can be overridden by supplying arguments to `postscript`.

A PostScript device has a default family, which can be set by the user via `family`. If other font families are to be used when drawing to the PostScript device, these must be declared when the device is created via `fonts`; the font family names for this argument are R graphics font family names (see the documentation for `postscriptFonts`).

Line widths as controlled by `par(lwd=)` are in multiples of 1/96 inch: nultiples less than 1 are allowed. `pch="."` with `cex = 1` corresponds to a square of side 1/72 inch.

### Families

Font families are collections of fonts covering the five font faces, (conventionally plain, bold, italic, bold-italic and symbol) selected by the graphics parameter `par(font=)` or the grid parameter `gpar(fontface=)`. Font families can be specified either as an an initial/default font family for the device via the `family` argument or after the device is opened by the graphics parameter `par(family=)` or the grid parameter `gpar(fontfamily=)`. Families which will be used in addition to the initial family must be specified in the `fonts` argument when the device is opened.

Font families are declared via a call to `postscriptFonts`.

The argument `family` specifies the initial/default font family to be used. In normal use it is one of `"AvantGarde"`, `"Bookman"`, `"Courier"`, `"Helvetica"`, `"Helvetica-Narrow"`, `"NewCenturySchoolbook"`, `"Palatino"` or `"Times"`, and refers to the standard Adobe PostScript fonts families of those names which are included (or cloned) in all common PostScript devices.

Many PostScript emulators (including those based on `ghostscript`) use the URW equivalents of these fonts, which are `"URWGothic"`, `"URWBookman"`, `"NimbusMon"`, `"NimbusSan"`, `"NimbusSanCond"`, `"CenturySch"`, `"URWPalladio"` and `"NimbusRom"` respectively. If your PostScript device is using URW fonts, you will obtain access to more characters and more appropriate metrics by using these names. To make these easier to remember, `"URWHelvetica" == "NimbusSan"` and `"URWTimes" == "NimbusRom"` are also supported.

Another type of family makes use of CID-keyed fonts for East Asian languages – see `postscriptFonts`.

The `family` argument is normally a character string naming a font family, but family objects generated by `Type1Font` and `CIDFont` are also accepted. For compatibiility with earlier versions of R, the initial family can also be specified as a vector of four or five afm files.

### Encodings

Encodings describe which glyphs are used to display the character codes (in the range 0–255). Most commonly R uses ISOLatin1 encoding, and the examples for `text` are in that encoding. However, the encoding used on machines running R may well be different, and by using the `encoding` argument the glyphs can be matched to encoding in use. This suffices for European and Cyrillic languages, but not for CJK languages. For the latter, composite CID fonts are used. These fonts are be useful for other languages: for example they may contain Greek glyphs. (The rest of this section applies only when CID fonts are not used.)

None of this will matter if only ASCII characters (codes 32–126) are used as all the encodings (except `"TeXtext"`) agree over that range. Some encodings are supersets of ISOLatin1, too. However, if accented and special characters do not come out as you expect, you may need to change the encoding. Some other encodings are supplied with R: `"WinAnsi.enc"` and `"MacRoman.enc"` correspond to the encodings normally used on Windows and Classic MacOS (at least by Adobe), and `"PDFDoc.enc"` is the first 256 characters of the Unicode encoding, the standard for PDF. There are also encodings `"ISOLatin2.enc"`, `"CP1250.enc"`, `"ISOLatin7.enc"` (ISO 8859-13), `"CP1257.enc"`, and `"ISOLatin9.enc"` (ISO 8859-15), `"Cyrillic.enc"` (ISO 8859-5), `"KOI8-R.enc"`, `"KOI8-U.enc"`, `"CP1251.enc"`, `"Greek.enc"` (ISO 8859-7) and `"CP1253.enc"`. Note that many glyphs in these encodings are not in the fonts corresponding to the standard families. (The Adobe ones for all but Courier, Helvetica and Times cover little more than Latin-1, whereas the URW ones also cover Latin-2, Latin-7, Latin-9 and Cyrillic but no Greek. The Adobe exceptions cover the Latin character sets, but not the Euro.)

If you specify the encoding, it is your responsibility to ensure that the PostScript font contains the glyphs used. One issue here is the Euro symbol which is in the WinAnsi and MacRoman encodings but may well not be in the PostScript fonts. (It is in the URW variants; it is not in the supplied Adobe Font Metric files.)

There is an exception. Character 45 (`"-"`) is always set as minus (its value in Adobe ISOLatin1) even though it is hyphen in the other encodings. Hyphen is available as character 173 (octal 0255) in all the Latin encodings, Cyrillic and Greek. There are some discrepancies in accounts of glyphs 39 and 96: the supplied encodings (except CP1250 and CP1251) treat these as ‘quoteright’ and ‘quoteleft’ (rather than ‘quotesingle’/‘acute’ and ‘grave’ respectively), as they are in the Adobe documentation.

### TeX fonts

TeX has traditionally made use of fonts such as Computer Modern which are encoded rather differently, in a 7-bit encoding. This encoding can be specified by `encoding = "TeXtext.enc"`, taking care that the ASCII characters `< > \ _ { }` are not available in those fonts.

There are supplied families `"ComputerModern"` and `"ComputerModernItalic"` which use this encoding, and which are only supported for `postscript` (and not `pdf`). They are intended to use with the Type 1 versions of the TeX CM fonts. It will normally be possible to include such output in TeX or LaTeX provided it is processed with `dvips -Ppfb -j0` or the equivalent on your system. (`-j0` turns off font subsetting.) When `family = "ComputerModern"` is used, the italic/bold-italic fonts used are slanted fonts (`cmsl10` and `cmbxsl10`). To use text italic fonts instead, set `family = "ComputerModernItalic"`.

These families use the TeX math italic and symbol fonts for a comprehensive but incomplete coverage of the glyphs covered by the Adobe symbol font in other families. This is achieved by special-casing the postscript code generated from the supplied ‘`CM_symbol_10.afm`’.

### Author(s)

Support for Computer Modern fonts is based on a contribution by Brian D'Urso durso@hussle.harvard.edu.

### References

Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988) The New S Language. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.

### See Also

`postscriptFonts`, `Devices`, {`check.options` which is called from both `ps.options` and `postscript`}.

### Examples

    ## Not run:
    # open the file "foo.ps" for graphics output
    postscript("foo.ps")
    # produce the desired graph(s)
    dev.off()              # turn off the postscript device
    postscript("|lp -dlw")
    # produce the desired graph(s)
    dev.off()              # plot will appear on printer

    # for URW PostScript devices
    postscript("foo.ps", family = "NimbusSan")

    ## for inclusion in Computer Modern TeX documents, perhaps
    postscript("cm_test.eps", width = 4.0, height = 3.0,
               horizontal = FALSE, onefile = FALSE, paper = "special",
               family = "ComputerModern", encoding = "TeXtext.enc")
    ## The resultant postscript file can be used by dvips -Ppfb -j0.

    ## To test out encodings, you can use
    TestChars <- function(encoding="ISOLatin1", family="URWHelvetica")
    {
        postscript(encoding=encoding, family=family)
        par(pty="s")
        plot(c(-1,16), c(-1,16), type="n", xlab="", ylab="",
             xaxs="i", yaxs="i")
        title(paste("Centred chars in encoding", encoding))
        grid(17, 17, lty=1)
        for(i in c(32:255)) {
            x <- i %% 16
            y <- i %/% 16
            points(x, y, pch=i)
        }
        dev.off()
    }
    ## there will be many warnings.  We use URW to get a complete enough
    ## set of font metrics.
    TestChars()
    TestChars("ISOLatin2")
    TestChars("WinAnsi")
    ## End(Not run)

    ps.options(bg = "pink")
    utils::str(ps.options(reset = TRUE))

    ### ---- error checking of arguments: ----
    ps.options(width=0:12, onefile=0, bg=pi)
    # override the check for 'onefile', but not the others:
    utils::str(ps.options(width=0:12, onefile=1, bg=pi,
                          override.check = c(FALSE,TRUE,FALSE)))

[Package grDevices version 2.3.1 Index]