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Save PDFs with custom fonts

Source: vignettes/pdf_fonts.Rmd
pdf_fonts.Rmd

camcorder doesn’t only work with raster images such as PNG and JPEG but also PDF files. There are some benefits of using the PDF format when saving ggplot output: vector graphics are lossless, can be converted easily in raster formats of any resolution and also be manipulated afterwards in a vector design tool. Furthermore, the PDF format often supports the use of custom fonts (when using the Cairo device)1.

To automatically save your graphics in PDF format, just change the device setting to cairo_pdf2 when recording your ggplot code:

library(ggplot2)
library(camcorder)

gg_record(
  dir = file.path(tempdir(), "recording"), 
  device = cairo_pdf, # we need to set the Cairo device
  width = 8,
  height = 5
)

Mac users should ensure that XQuartz is installed which is needed to use the cairo pdf device.

To supply custom fonts in R, the respective font needs to be installed locally on the system.

You can make sure the font file is installed by using the system_fonts() from the latest standard, the {systemfont} package:

systemfonts::system_fonts()
#> # A tibble: 166 × 9
#>    path                   index name  family style weight width italic monospace
#>    <chr>                  <int> <chr> <chr>  <chr> <ord>  <ord> <lgl>  <lgl>    
#>  1 /usr/share/fonts/type…     0 URWG… URW G… Book… normal norm… FALSE  FALSE    
#>  2 /usr/share/fonts/true…     0 Lato… Lato   Thin… ultra… norm… TRUE   FALSE    
#>  3 /usr/share/fonts/true…     0 Libe… Liber… Bold  bold   norm… FALSE  FALSE    
#>  4 /usr/share/fonts/type…     0 Nimb… Nimbu… Regu… normal norm… TRUE   FALSE    
#>  5 /usr/share/fonts/type…     0 URWB… URW B… Ligh… normal norm… TRUE   FALSE    
#>  6 /usr/share/fonts/true…     0 Lato… Lato   Semi… semib… norm… TRUE   FALSE    
#>  7 /usr/share/fonts/type…     0 Nimb… Nimbu… Bold… bold   norm… TRUE   TRUE     
#>  8 /usr/share/fonts/true…     0 Libe… Liber… Bold  bold   norm… FALSE  TRUE     
#>  9 /usr/share/fonts/open…     0 Nimb… Nimbu… Bold… bold   norm… TRUE   FALSE    
#> 10 /usr/share/fonts/type…     0 Nimb… Nimbu… Regu… normal norm… FALSE  FALSE    
#> # ℹ 156 more rows

You can simply filter this tibble for any font:3

systemfonts::system_fonts() |> 
  dplyr::filter(grepl("Dyna", family)) |>
  dplyr::pull(name) |> 
  sort()
#> character(0)

Now let’s create a graphic with the DynaPuff Condensed typeface as the base_family of our theme:

g <- 
  ggplot(diamonds, aes(x = cut)) + 
  geom_bar(fill = "grey65") +
  theme_minimal(
    base_family = "DynaPuff Condensed",
    base_size = 24
  )

g

And now let’s add a non-condensed, bold title:

g +
  ggtitle("PDFs are a font lovers best friend") +
  theme(
    plot.title.position = "plot",
    plot.title = element_text(family = "DynaPuff", face = "bold")
  )

That’s it. If you want to know more about good practices how to handle and customize fonts in ggplot2 check this blog post by June Choe.