Hi, When creating figures to be included in Latex documents I encountered a few problems. In the end the text rendering just doesn't blend in well, one way or another. I found that the problems can be fixed by using Xelatex, which provides full unicode support and is able to use the installed fonts of your operating system.
I wrote a new backend that uses the "pgf" latex package for drawing matplotlib figures. It is compatible with pdflatex, xelatex and lualatex. The pgf pictures can be included in latex documents or can be directly compiled to PDF by the backend, utilizing the benefits of Xelatex. The code for the backend and a script creating a test figure is on github: https://github.com/pwuertz/matplotlib-backend-pgf/ A document that demonstrates the benefits of using pgf/xelatex is also there: https://github.com/pwuertz/matplotlib-backend-pgf/raw/master/demo/demo.pdf Although I think the pgf backend is very useful already and produces figures in publication quality (an overused expression ;) ), there are still some loose ends. Basically, everything I need works but I don't have the time anymore to figure out all the rest. Maybe someone is interested in improving this backend, possibly making it a real option for the masses? I wrote down all open questions I had in TODO comments within the code. To summarize them: * The default font for the backend is the unicode variant of Computer Modern (CMU Serif), which might not be present on most users' systems. If you don't want to install/use it, you can just specify another (see test script). I could as well check for the fonts specified in the rc parameters but these just do fit in Latex documents. * When printing pgf commands, the actual font depends on the latex environment you are embedding the figure in. Matplotlib only needs a font for calculating the text positions and for direct PDF output. * I'm not sure how certain draw methods of the renderer should behave due to lack of documentation. * Some text properties like switching font families or making the text italic/bold are ignored since I did not need them. * Backends like svg or pdf are able to display the document upon show(). I don't know how this is achieved without creating a graphical user interface myself. The other backends don't implement it. * The method of obtaining the metrics of text elements is pretty cool I think (XelatexManager), but it breaks easily since there is no way of defining a timeout for reading the output of a subprocesses that keeps running during the figure creation process. Right now, if Latex doesn't understand a text-element the process stalls. An alternative is to run a new latex process for every single text element or start using threads. -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/Pgf-Backend-with-Xelatex-support-tp34072290p34072290.html Sent from the matplotlib - users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list Matplotlib-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users
