Default font size with postscript device

Question

I am generating eps figures in R using the postscript device, something like this (simplified):

require(extrafont)
#font_import() # I did it only once when installing new fonts
# see http://www.fromthebottomoftheheap.net/2013/09/09/preparing-figures-for-plos-one-with-r/
loadfonts(device = "postscript")
postscript("elev.eps", width = 70/25.4, height = 75/25.4,
           family = "Myriad Web Pro", paper = "special", onefile = FALSE,
           horizontal = FALSE)
barplot(krk$counts, space=0, horiz=T, cex.axis = 0.7)
dev.off()

Now my question is about the font size I am trying to fiddle with using cex.axis, in a clumsy way. I am supposed to have the axis labels in font size 8. Can I somehow tell the postscript device that I want the base font size = 8? I.e. for cex = 1 I want font size = 8. All I found available is the cex parameter, which is relative to something which I don't know how to even get, let alone set...

PS: I tried ?postscript but haven't found the answer

You set the point size when you instantiate the font, either with the scalefont or setfont operator. I have no idea how you would persuade R to produce the output you want, presumably it must be producing PostScript containing one of those operators or everything would be in the default font (Courier usually) — KenS
The comment by KenS suggested that you seek to modify the "point size". Since there is a pointsize parameter listed in Courier font along the left side of the Arguments list, I thought surely that was enough. — IRTFM

IRTFM IRTFM · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-01T07:38:11

This produced the expected dimunition in font size on my device.

postscript("elev.eps", width = 70/25.4, height = 75/25.4,
            paper = "special", onefile = FALSE,
           horizontal = FALSE, pointsize=8)
barplot(1,1, space=0, horiz=T, cex.axis = 0.7)
dev.off()

enter image description here

(That image is rotated 90 degrees from how it displays in my pdf-viewer, but I don't think your issue relates to the horizontal argument.)

Default font size with postscript device

1 Answers