Issue including Greek or special characters in ggplots when using ragg and PNG output

Question

I have a seemingly simple problem which I cannot figure out the cause of. I cannot get Greek characters into the Y/X-axis labels in a ggplot, if I save using the ragg device.

Reprex:

library(ggplot2)
library(ragg)
data("mtcars")

beta_plot <- ggplot(mtcars) +
  geom_point(aes(x = mpg, y = disp)) +
  ylab(bquote(beta))

tf <- tempfile(fileext = ".png")

ggsave(
  filename = tf,
  plot = beta_plot,
  device = ragg::agg_png,
  width = 800,
  height = 800,
  units = "px",
  res = 300
)

^{Created on 2021-07-19 by the reprex package (v2.0.0)}

This is the output:

In contrast, this is the output on the RStudio viewer:

I believe that if I change the device to Cairo, the beta term appears, but I would rather use ragg for version control purposes etc.

sessionInfo()
#> R version 3.6.3 (2020-02-29)
#> Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
#> Running under: Arch Linux
#> 
#> Matrix products: default
#> BLAS:   /usr/lib/libopenblasp-r0.3.15.so
#> LAPACK: /usr/lib/liblapack.so.3.10.0
#> 
#> locale:
#>  [1] LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8    LC_NUMERIC=C            LC_TIME=en_GB.UTF-8    
#>  [4] LC_COLLATE=en_GB.UTF-8  LC_MONETARY=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.UTF-8
#>  [7] LC_PAPER=en_GB.UTF-8    LC_NAME=C               LC_ADDRESS=C           
#> [10] LC_TELEPHONE=C          LC_MEASUREMENT=C        LC_IDENTIFICATION=C    
#> 
#> attached base packages:
#> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
#> 
#> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
#>  [1] knitr_1.33        magrittr_2.0.1    rlang_0.4.11      fansi_0.5.0      
#>  [5] stringr_1.4.0     styler_1.4.1      highr_0.9         tools_3.6.3      
#>  [9] xfun_0.24         utf8_1.2.1        withr_2.4.2       htmltools_0.5.1.1
#> [13] ellipsis_0.3.2    yaml_2.2.1        digest_0.6.27     tibble_3.1.2     
#> [17] lifecycle_1.0.0   crayon_1.4.1      purrr_0.3.4       vctrs_0.3.8      
#> [21] fs_1.5.0          glue_1.4.2        evaluate_0.14     rmarkdown_2.9    
#> [25] reprex_2.0.0      stringi_1.6.2     compiler_3.6.3    pillar_1.6.1     
#> [29] backports_1.2.1   pkgconfig_2.0.3

^{Created on 2021-07-19 by the reprex package (v2.0.0)}

Is this a setting issue somewhere, a bug, or a misconfiguration?

OK, this sounds like it might be a Linux specific problem then. Odd. — tinker, Jul 19 '21 at 10:45
Do you have the same problem when using `agg_png()` to save your graphics? Example here https://ragg.r-lib.org/reference/agg_png.html — mhovd, Jul 19 '21 at 11:58

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 19 '21 at 14:22

This is the reprex attempting to use agg_png instead of via a device in ggsave. Same issue.

library(ggplot2)
library(ragg)
data("mtcars")

beta_plot <- ggplot(mtcars) +
  geom_point(aes(x = mpg, y = disp)) +
  ylab(bquote(beta))

tf <- tempfile(fileext = ".png")

agg_png(filename = tf, width = 800, height = 800, units = "px", res = 300)
beta_plot
dev.off()
#> png 
#>   2

Issue including Greek or special characters in ggplots when using ragg and PNG output

1 Answers1