Unicode conversion error in axis label

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Mon, 06/23/2014 - 01:06 pm

I recently switched back to using a Mac in a lab full of PCs, and I'm trying to get used to different behavior in Igor. I used to use the following sort of construction when I wanted symbols in my axis labels:

Label left "\\F'Symbol'D\\F'default'EPSC"

This would give me "[delta]EPSC" as the label. On the PC, switching back the font using 'default' seemed like a good idea, because then I could change all the fonts in an experiment by changing the default font if I wanted to (I like generality). But on the Mac this causes a problem. If the default font is Arial (which is commonly the case, since most of our computers are PCs), then it prints the [delta] just fine, but instead of "EPSC" the label says "unicode conversion error". This is weird, because if I change 'default' to 'Arial' in the axis label, it prints fine. If the default experiment font is not Arial, but rather Verdana or Geneva, then it prints fine (in that other font). Any ideas? The work-around is obvious, but I have a hard time letting go of the "right" way to do things.

-Matthew

p.s. Relatedly, if anyone has any suggestions how to import graphs into Powerpoint on the Mac and still be able to edit them like I could on the PC, I would be very grateful.
I'm not able to reproduce the problem but I do see something suspicious in the code. We will investigate.

Try using "Recall Font" ("\\F]0"). That might work.

Also I would be interested in knowing the details of your Mac OS such as what version you are running and what language you have set as your preferred language.

June 24, 2014 at 07:08 am - Permalink

That's what I like about Igor. There's always one more feature I didn't know about. The \F]0 did work. I will use that instead (less typing, too).
My system is 10.9.3, and language = English.
It may also be there is something wacky in my recent install. Other things have been acting up that were fine before (listboxes, controls appearing on the wrong panel), but I need to fool around more to understand these better.

-Matthew

June 24, 2014 at 08:58 am - Permalink

It turns out that your use of 'default' as a font name in that situation at least is not anticipated by Igor's code. Our first impression is that supporting it would be problematic technically speaking.

June 24, 2014 at 11:35 am - Permalink

And you don't even need to type that escape. Just click the font button on the left and choose the recall font item. That is the intended method to revert to the default font.

The occasional conversion error was due to an uninitalized variable when 'default' was used as the name of a font. We will fix this but you still should use the recall font 0 method.

As for editing graphs in Powerpoint on Mac, it does not seem that that is supported by Microsoft. You will need to create the graph fully formed in Igor.

Larry Hutchinson
WaveMetrics
support@WaveMetrics.com

June 24, 2014 at 01:40 pm - Permalink