Here's an answer by Professor Ripley to the R-help list a few years ago to the same question: http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/help/01a/0413.html
Basically, cex set using par sets the initial scale at a global level across all elements of a plot, but cex set locally inside plot() just changes the scale of plotted points and text. Try changing your plot type to type="p" or type="b", and you will see cex inside plot() change the size of the plotted symbols; if you just used type="l", you would not see a difference, since line width and type is controlled through other settings. Setting cex.axis, cex.lab, cex.sub, cex.main within plot() will set the scale of axis annotations, x&y labels, sub-titles, and main titles with respect to the current par setting of cex. Best wishes, Todd On 6/24/08 Tuesday, June 24, 2008,6:16 AM, "Carl Witthoft" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > According to the documentation, the scaling parameter 'cex' is callable > inside plot(). However, I can't get it to change anything. > > If I set cex using par(), the graph parameters scale appropriately. > > Is this a bug, is it a Mac-only (quartz) bug, or something else? > > thanks > Carl > > _______________________________________________ > R-SIG-Mac mailing list > [email protected] > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac > _______________________________________________ R-SIG-Mac mailing list [email protected] https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
