Text in R graphics

Abstract

R graphics has provided the ability to draw simple text labels on plots since R version 1.0.0. However, these basic text-drawing facilities are quite limited. Over the past 25 years, more sophisticated text-drawing features have been added: support for the Unicode character set; access to system fonts; text paths; support for text markup; and rendering of typeset text. This article charts the development of text-drawing support in R and provides demonstrations of some of the more sophisticated features.