Mathieu Leplatre wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have been trying to follow your tips regarding matplotlib and arabic
> support.
>
> Is it related to my installation ? (Ubuntu with package
> texlive-latex-recommended)
> I asked here : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=5258457
>
I have no idea. Try asking on a texlive forum, perhaps.
Do you have a real need for using "usetex", or are you just doing that
given my suggestion from last October?
Here's the thing to keep in mind: matplotlib's built-in text layout
algorithm is completely English-centric. It assumes all text is left to
right and doesn't deal with any of Unicode's complications like
combining characters etc. We really should be using a proper text
layout engine like Pango or ICU TextLayout that has all these things
worked out. matplotlib in general avoids (L)GPL'd libraries for core
functionality so Pango is probably out. And ICU TextLayout doesn't
appear to have Python bindings, adding another speed bump to its use. I
think it needs a highly-motivated developer to take it on.
Unfortunately, I think many of us are in the head-in-the-sand about
internationalization United States... ;)
So the trick here for matplotlib (ignoring the LaTeX/XeTeX issues for
now), is to avoid its built-in text layout. The Agg, Pdf and Ps
backends are basically forced to use it by the nature of the format and
implementations. The Cairo backend could do it if we used pangocairo,
but at the moment we use Cairo's "toy" text API which doesn't have all
the Pango goodness. It turns out that (basically by accident) the SVG
backend *does* work, if you set "svg.embed_char_paths" to False. In
that mode, it outputs "real" SVG text as strings that appear (to my
non-Arabic-reading eyes) to be interpreted correctly r-to-l in
Inkscape. Note, however, that matplotlib will get the length of the
text wrong, so the text is slightly off-center. But it's a start.
Now, on to the LaTeX-based solution. I'm a bit out of my element here
and only suggesting things that I might try next. No guarantees of
working at all. I haven't spent much time with matplotlib's usetex code.
> Somebody pointed me out XeTeX, which has wider support for Unicode.
> www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb27-2/tb87kew.pdf
>
> I was wondering if there could be a way to get matplotlib work with XeTeX.
>
I don't have XeTeX installed here (and don't have root access to my
machine at work), so I can't easily try it. You could experiment,
however, by replacing
command = self._get_shell_cmd('cd "%s"'% self.texcache,
'latex -interaction=nonstopmode %s > "%s"'\
%(os.path.split(texfile)[-1], outfile))
with
command = self._get_shell_cmd('cd "%s"'% self.texcache,
'xelatex --no-pdf -interaction=nonstopmode
%s > "%s"'\
%(os.path.split(texfile)[-1], outfile))
Make sure text.latex.unicode is set to False, so that the ucs packages,
which are incompatible with XeTeX, are not loaded.
A couple of things may stand in the way -- xetex, with the --no-pdf
option, outputs "xdv" (extended dvi), rather than "dvi". matplotlib
inserts LaTeX text by converting dvi to png or ps (with dvipng or dvips
respectively). I don't know how backward-compatible xdv is as a format
and whether that's a show stopper.
If you get somewhere and get stuck again, please post your progress and
all console output etc. here and I can try to get you unstuck again.
> What do you think ? Is it the right track ? Should I switch to
> grandpa's gnuplot :) ?
>
Well, gnuplot does use pango, apparently, so it has that advantage, if
nothing else... ;)
Cheers,
Mike
> Thank you all,
>
> Mathieu.
>
>
> Michael Droettboom wrote:
>
>> Unfortunately, I believe this is a fundamental incompatibility within
>> matplotlib. matplotlib uses a very simple algorithm for layout out a
>> line of characters which assumes ltr order and all kinds of other things.
>>
>> That said, there is something you could try. Matplotlib has a "usetex"
>> mode which will do all text rendering using LaTeX. Assuming you can get
>> LaTeX to handle Arabic correctly, you can set the following in your
>> .matplotlibrc file:
>>
>> text.usetex : True
>> text.latex.unicode : True
>>
>> You'll need to install the LaTeX Unicode extension "ucs" (Ubuntu
>> probably has packages for that.) If you need to load any LaTeX packages
>> to get arabic support, you can tell matplotlib about them in your
>> matplotlibrc like so:
>>
>> text.latex.preamble: \usepackage{foo}
>>
>> If Arabic-encoded-as-Unicode doesn't work, you could try setting
>> "text.latex.unicode" to False, and then typing your Arabic strings using
>> one of the other Arabic encodings that LaTeX understands.
>>
>> Please let us know if you have success or hit another roadblock.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Mike
>>
>> Burhan Khalid wrote:
>>
>>> Hello All:
>>>
>>> Having an issue with Arabic font support using matplotlib. When using
>>> the correct font, Arabic characters are displayed, but are not joined
>>> together
>>> properly; and they are also not in the correct order (the font rendered is
>>> ltr, but Arabic is a rtl language). Is this an issue with the render I
>>> am using, or some incompatibility within matplotlib? Sample source code
>>> used (please note, your email client should support utf8 to display the
>>> code correctly).
>>>
>>> #-*- coding: utf-8 -*-
>>> from pylab import *
>>> figure(1) # the first figure
>>> plot([1,2,3])
>>> figure(1) # figure 1 current
>>> title(u'برهان',name='Times New Roman') # figure 1 title
>>> savefig('test.png')
>>> savefig('test.eps')
>>> show()
>>>
>>> Output when run from the command line:
>>>
>>> matplotlib data path /usr/share/matplotlib/mpl-data
>>> $HOME=/home/burhan
>>> CONFIGDIR=/home/burhan/.matplotlib
>>> loaded rc file /etc/matplotlibrc
>>> matplotlib version 0.90.1
>>> verbose.level helpful
>>> interactive is False
>>> units is True
>>> platform is linux2
>>> numerix numpy 1.0.3
>>> font search path ['/usr/share/matplotlib/mpl-data/fonts/ttf',
>>> '/usr/share/matplotlib/mpl-data/fonts/afm']
>>> loaded ttfcache file /home/burhan/.matplotlib/ttffont.cache
>>> backend TkAgg version 8.4
>>> Could not match Bitstream Vera Serif, New Century Schoolbook, Century
>>> Schoolbook L, Utopia, ITC Bookman, Bookman, Nimbus Roman No9 L, Times
>>> New Roman, Times, Palatino, Charter, serif, normal, normal. Returning
>>> /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-bitstream-vera/Vera.ttf
>>>
>>> This is on a clean Ubuntu Gutsy install, using python 2.5.1.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Burhan
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>> --
>> Michael Droettboom
>> Science Software Branch
>> Operations and Engineering Division
>> Space Telescope Science Institute
>> Operated by AURA for NASA
>>
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Michael Droettboom
Science Software Branch
Operations and Engineering Division
Space Telescope Science Institute
Operated by AURA for NASA
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