The length of the hyphen depends on the type of device (pdf, png) - how can I get short hyphens using pdf?

Question

I want to use short hyphens for text using grid graphics like

txt <- "a dash-in between" 

The following examples show that the results differ depending on the output device (pdf, png).

 pdf("test.pdf") grid.text(txt) dev.off() 

 png("test.png") grid.text(txt) dev.off() 

The hyphen for a pdf device is much longer. What I want is a short hyphen using a pdf device. How can i do this?

Answer 1

Try the cairo-based PDF device from grDevices ( cairo_pdf ):

 library("grid") txt <- "a dash-in between" cairo_pdf("test.pdf") grid.text(txt) dev.off() 

Check capabilities() to see if cairo is supported on your system.