[Matplotlib-users] Trouble with fonts

[Steven B. <bo...@ph...>]

List,

I am trying, with little success, to change the fonts on my plots. It 
seems like a simple thing to do, but I can't seem to make it work.

First, here is the relevant section of my Matplotlibrc file:

backend      : GTKAgg

font.family         : sans-serif
font.style          : normal
font.weight         : medium
font.sans-serif     : Helvetica

(I copied this from the Matplotlibrc documentation page)


Now if I make a plot, and put some labels on there... (just using ipython)

In [3]: figure()
Out[3]: <matplotlib.figure.Figure at 0x2acb950>

In [4]: xlabel('Hz',fontsize=20)
Out[4]: <matplotlib.text.Text at 0x2ae3510>

In [5]: 
/opt/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/font_manager.py:1216: 
UserWarning: findfont: Font family ['sans-serif'] not found. Falling 
back to Bitstream Vera Sans
   (prop.get_family(), self.defaultFamily[fontext]))


I get this over and over and over again. I have deleted everything in my 
~/.matplotlib folder. That is, I have deleted all of the font caches... 
I can't come up with anything else. The internet seems to thing that 
just deleting the caches will fix everything. In my case it doesn't.

I get this problem on both my mac, and my Ubuntu Linux 12.04 machine.

Thanks!

Steven