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Re: Re: Bug in Graphics Text under Linux

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg51719] Re: [mg51706] Re: Bug in Graphics Text under Linux
  • From: George Woodrow III <georgevw3 at mac.com>
  • Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 01:15:27 -0500 (EST)
  • References: <clprqg$a6f$1@smc.vnet.net> <200410290740.DAA03524@smc.vnet.net>
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

You *can* use X11 with OS X, but Mathematica does not. It has a custom 
front end for the Mac.

The implementation of display postscript used in current versions of 
Mathematica (going back to version 1) does not rotate text on the 
screen properly. I believe that this is due to the underlying QuickDraw 
routines that the display postscript calls. Printing works fine.

As far as I know, this is supposed to be fixed in a future version. 
Since QuickDraw has been deprecated, I hope that the Front End for 
Mathematica will soon use Quartz. They may have talked about this at 
the recent Mathematica conference, but I could not attend.

george

On 29 Oct, 2004, at 3:40 am, Kevin J. McCann wrote:

> Bill,
>
> I believe that OS10 uses X11 (XFreeBSD or somesuch).
>
> Kevin
>
>
> Bill Rowe wrote:
>> On 10/27/04 at 1:54 AM, kmccann at umbc.edu (Kevin) wrote:
>>
>>
>>> This problem has been presented before, but I have not used
>>> Mathematica under Linux in a while. Under 5.0 (and earlier
>>> versions) I find that graphic text that runs other than horizontal
>>> is not properly rendered. For example, if I plot something like
>>> this
>>
>>
>>> Text[StyleForm["Scattered Wave", FontSize -> 12], {5.5, 3.2}, {0,
>>> 0}, {1, 0.55}]
>>>
>>> I get "Scattered Wave" running off at about 30deg, but each letter
>>> is horizontal. This problem produces an even more absurd result for
>>> y-axis labels for which the label runs vertically but the letters
>>> are horizontal.
>>
>>
>>> The last time I tuned in on this, Wolfram support said it was a
>>> problem with X11. Perhaps, but it is still a BUG in the Linux
>>> product that makes Mathematica on Linux unusable in the classroom.
>>
>>
>>> Does anyone know of a workaround?
>>
>>
>> The problem you describe above is not just a problem with X11 and 
>> Linux. It also occurs with Mathematica running on Mac OS 10.3.
>>
>> I have seen various workarounds, none entirely satisfatory. One 
>> approach is to use Hershey fonts. There is a package on Wolfram's web 
>> site which allows usage of Herhey fonts in Mathematica. This approach 
>> is nice in that everything is handled within Mathematica. But placing 
>> and sizing the text the way you want is somewhat time consuming. 
>> Also, the choice of fonts is more limited. But reasonable appearing 
>> plots can be generated with this approach.
>>
>> The other workaround I've used for reports is to generated the plots 
>> without problematical text, convert the Mathematica notebook to a PDF 
>> file and use a third party application to edit the resulting PDF file 
>> manually adding the text in the way I want. The end result usually 
>> looks better than what I get with Hershey fonts, but I really prefer 
>> something that can be handled within Mathematica.
>>
>> Another possible workaround might be to use Publicon. Does anyone 
>> know if this issue exists within Publicon?
>> --
>> To reply via email subtract one hundred and four
>>
>
>


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