The forthcoming R Journal has an interesting article on the showtext package by Yixuan Qiu. The package allows me to use system and web fonts directly in R plots, reminding me a little of the approach taken by XeLaTeX. But “unlike other methods to embed fonts into graphics, showtext converts text into raster images or polygons, and then adds them to the plot canvas. This method produces platform-independent image files that do not rely on the fonts that create them.