Setting Character and Symbol Attributes

The routine <#1070#>plfont<#1070#> (page #plfont#1071>) sets up the default font for all character strings. It may be over-ridden for (a portion) of a string by using an escape sequence within the text, as described below. Four fonts are available, the default font (1) is simple and fastest to draw, while the others are useful for presentation plots on a high-resolution device.

The font codes are interpreted as follows:

The routine <#1072#>plschr<#1072#> (page #plschr#1073>) is used to set up the size of subsquent characters drawn. The actual height of a character is the product of the default character size and a scaling factor. If no call is made to <#912#>plschr<#912#>, the default character size is set up depending on the number of subpages defined in the call to <#913#>plstar<#913#> or <#914#>plbeg<#914#>, and the scale is set to 1.0. Under normal circumstances, it is recommended that the user does not alter the default height, but simply uses the scale parameter. This can be done by calling <#915#>plschr<#915#> with <#916#>def=0.0<#916#> and <#917#>scale<#917#> set to the desired multiple of the default height. If the default height is to be changed, <#918#>def<#918#> is set to the new default height in millimetres, and the new character height is again set to <#919#>def<#919#> multiplied by <#920#>scale<#920#>.

The routine <#1074#>plssym<#1074#> (page #plssym#1075>) sets up the size of all subsequent symbols drawn by calls to <#922#>plpoin<#922#> and <#923#>plsym<#923#>. It operates analogously to <#924#>plschr<#924#> as described above.

The lengths of major and minor ticks on the axes are set up by the routines <#1076#>plsmaj<#1076#> (page #plsmaj#1077>) and <#1078#>plsmin<#1078#> (page #plsmin#1079>).