Font types

[pnkraemer]

Often, conference and journal style files require Type-1 fonts. Per default, matplotlib uses type 3 fonts.

One thing that one could do would be to change the rcparams to pdf.fonttype=42,

plt.rcParams["pdf.fonttype"] = 42  # alternative would be 3

which generates type 42 fonts. It is not clear entirely whether this is sufficient for the type 1 rule. That would require checking, though.

[pnkraemer]

Some updates

The following script:

from tueplots import bundles
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

def plot(string):
    plt.subplots()
    plt.plot(np.arange(4), np.arange(4))
    plt.xlabel("xlabel")
    plt.ylabel("ylabel")
    plt.title("abc $math$")
    plt.savefig(string)

# Type 1 fonts
plt.rcParams.update(bundles.icml2022(usetex=True))
plot(string="usetex_True.pdf")

# Type 3 fonts
plt.rcParams.update(bundles.icml2022(usetex=False))
plot(string="usetex_False.pdf")

# TrueType fonts
plt.rcParams.update({"pdf.fonttype": 42})
plt.rcParams.update(bundles.icml2022(usetex=False))
plot(string="usetex_False_type42.pdf")

yields for pdffonts usetex_False.pdf

name                                 type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
BMQQDV+DejaVuSans                    Type 3            Custom           yes yes no      15  0
FTXWZA+STIXGeneral-Italic            Type 3            Custom           yes yes no      33  0

for pdffonts usetex_False_type42.pdf:

name                                 type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
BMQQDV+DejaVuSans                    CID TrueType      Identity-H       yes yes yes     15  0
FTXWZA+STIXGeneral-Italic            CID TrueType      Identity-H       yes yes yes     23  0

and for pdffonts usetex_True.pdf

name                                 type              encoding         emb sub uni object ID
------------------------------------ ----------------- ---------------- --- --- --- ---------
NimbusSanL-Regu                      Type 1            Custom           yes no  no      14  0
NimbusSanL-ReguItal                  Type 1            Custom           yes no  no      18  0

Conclusion

So if type 1 fonts are absolutely required, usetex=True seems to be the easiest solution. If it is only about avoiding type 3 fonts, setting pdf.fonttype to 42 works well.