I think I found a bug in the Cairo library, plus weird behavior in both the Cairo and the normal pdf device. The baseline of the spades symbol seems to be off. This is easier to show than it is to explain. The problem does not appear in the normal pdf device, which is why I am guessing this is a Cairo bug. moreover, I cannot figure out why three of the card symbols seem to be transparent, but the fourth is not. this is the case for both the Cairo and the ordinary pdf devices.
I thought I would report it to the R wizards on this group... library(Cairo) clubs <- expression(symbol('\247')) hearts <- expression(symbol('\250')) diamonds <- expression(symbol('\251')) spades <- expression(symbol('\252')) csymbols <- c(clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades) CairoPDF(file = "cardsymbols.pdf") plot( 0, xlim=c(0,5), ylim=c(0,2), type="n" ) clr <- c("black", "red", "red", "black") for (i in 1:4) { hline <- function( yloc, ... ) for (i in 1:length(yloc)) lines( c(-1,6), c(yloc[i],yloc[i]), col="gray") hline(0.9); hline(1.0); hline(1.1); hline(1.2) text( i, 1, csymbols[i], col=clr[i], cex=5 ) text( i, 0.5, csymbols[i], col=clr[i] ) } dev.off() ---- Ivo Welch (ivo.we...@gmail.com) ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.