[metapost] Problem with defaultscale

[Laurence Finston]

> Whatever the value of "defaultscale" the font size of the label  
> doesn't seem to be affected :-( My typesetting command is

Perhaps `defaultscale' must be set outside of a figure?  Just a guess.

I use this (or similar commands) sometimes:

verbatimtex \magnification=\magstep1 etex

Put it at the beginning of your input file, or at least before any 
`label' commands.

You can also do things like this:

verbatimtex \magnification=\magstep5 \font\large=cmr12 etex

or scale specific fonts.  Please note that merely changing a font will not 
affect anything typeset in math mode, but `\magnification' and presumably 
defaultscale will.

I just noticed that you want a smaller magnfication.  I'm not sure how to 
go about this.  If you can't get `defaultscale' to work, it would probably 
be easiest to just not use math mode.  However, if you need it, it should 
work to redefine the fonts used in in (`scriptfont', `scriptscriptfont', 
etc.) and put the code in `verbatimtex ... etex'.  You can find it 
`plain.tex' and just change the numbers used;  it isn't difficult.  

Perhaps someone will come along with a better answer.

Laurence Finston


On Mon, 4 Aug 2008, Oliver Buerschaper wrote:

> Dear MetaPost wizards,
> 
> I'm trying to change the default font size MetaPost uses for labels  
> but the following code keeps giving me trouble:
> 
> ---
> beginfig(1);
>      defaultscale := 6;
>      label(btex Hallo $\sum$ etex, origin);
> endfig;
> 
> end
> ---
> 
> Whatever the value of "defaultscale" the font size of the label  
> doesn't seem to be affected :-( My typesetting command is
> 
> mptopdf labels.mp
> 
> What am I missing?
> 
> Oliver
> --
> http://tug.org/metapost/
>