matplotlib Code

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@header@ 
<h2>Font handling</h2> 

I have spent a lot of time trying to make text in matplotlib look
good.  This has been a limitation of many pre-exisiting python
graphing solutions, but with the rise of freetype and anti-aliased
rendering for linux, it is now possible to have great looking fonts.

<h3>GTK</h3>

The most recent versions of GTK (2.2.4.1 and later) and pygtk-2.0.0
and later on linux have freetype font support built-in by default.  If
you are using an older version, set the environemnt variab;e
<tt>GDK_USE_XFT</tt>

<pre>
export GDK_USE_XFT=1    # bash and friends
</pre>

or

<pre>
setenv GDK_USE_XFT 1    # csh and friends
</pre>

If you are using GTK under windows, see
http://www.async.com.br/faq/pygtk/index.py?req=show&file=faq21.011.htp.

<h3>PS</h3>

<a
href="http://www.adobe.com/products/postscript/main.html">Postscript</a>,
despite its age, is still a great output format.  Most publishers
accept it, it scales to arbitrary resolutions, you can import it
directly into LaTeX document, and send it directly to postscript
printers.<p>

The only requirement to generate postscript output is the Numeric
module and some AFM fonts on your system.  Even the latter is only a
quasi-requirement, because matplotlib ships with some of the most
popular font files.  These are <it>Adobe Font Metric</it> files, which
have the '*.afm' extension.  matplotlib comes with it's own AFM parser
to read these files and select the best match for the font you've
chosen.  If you want additional fonts, set the <tt>AFMPATH</tt>
environment variable to point to the dir containing your AFM font
files.  matplotlib willl recursively search any directory in
<tt>AFMPATH</tt>, so you only need to specify a base directory if
multiple subdirectories contaning '*.afm' files.<p>

<h3><a href="http://newcenturycomputers.net/projects/gdmodule.html">GD
module</a></h3>

The python interface to the GD library provides high quality,
anti-aliased font rendering to PNG and JPEG output without X support.
This is particularly useful for batch processing over a dumb terminal,
or for web application servers.  All of the font rendering using GD
module is with true type.  Thus you need to have '*.ttf' files on your
system to use this backend.  Set the environment variable
<tt>GDFONTPATH</tt> to point to your TTF fonts.  A typical windows dir
is <tt>C:\windows\fonts</tt>. matplotlib distributes the 'Vera' fonts
from bitstream, which were released under a permissive license, and
these are the defaults.  If you want more, set the environment
variable to point to them.<p>

If you are aware of other freely distributable ttf fonts, please
contact me -  @myemail@.

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