xlfont - load a font in the graphic context or query loaded font

Calling Sequence

xlfont(font-name,font-id)

fonts=xlfont()

Parameters

• font-name : string, name of the font family.
• font-id : integer between 0 and 10.
• fonts : a column vector of currently loaded font names.

Description

Without any argument, xlfont() returns the list of currently loaded fonts.

With arguments, xlfont is used to load a new font at different sizes in the graphics context. The font must be available with size 8, 10, 12, 14, 18 and 24.

Default fonts are "Courier Roman" (0), "Symbol" (1), "Times Roman" (2), "Times Italic" (3), "Times Bold" (4), "Times Bold Italic" (5), "Helvetica" (6), "Helvetica Oblique" (7), "Helvetica Bold" (8), "Helvetica Bold Oblique" (9). These default fonts are automaticaly loaded when needed and so xlfont is not really required for them. In fact xlfont is essentially useful to load a new font.

font-name can be of 2 types:

- if it contains the character "%", it is supposed to be an X11 font name with %s in the size field of the name, for example "-b&h-lucidabright-demibold-r-normal--%s-*-75-75-p-*-iso8859-1"

- if it does not contain the character "%", it is supposed to be an alias name and the fonts aliased by font-name08,...,font-name24 are loaded.

font-id: give the id font-id to the loaded font font-name .

Currently this load font feature works only for screen drivers and not for others (Postscript, Fig, Gif, PPM). If you export a graphical screen output in Postscript, Fig, Gif or PPM while you have previously loaded a new font, the behavior depends of the choice of the identifier font-id for the loaded font :

-if font-id=10 then the strings (drawn with this font) will be drawn with the default font (Times) at the same size;

-else the strings will be drawn with the default font corresponding to font-id .

Examples

// Caution : this example may not work if your system have not
//           the schoolbook bold font 
if MSDOS then
   xlfont("Century Schoolbook Bold",10)
else
   xlfont("-adobe-new century schoolbook-bold-r-normal-*-%s-*-75-75-*-*-iso8859-1",10)
end
xset("font", 10, 4) // use Schoolbook bold at 18 pts
plot2d()
 
  

See Also

xset ,   getfont ,  

Author

J.Ph.C.