Symptom

When trying to plot with gnuplot the following error can appear:

    Could not find/open font when opening font "xyz", using
    internal non-scalable font

Cause

gnuplot cannot find the font, either due to referencing a font that is not free and therefore does not exist on Linux (such as arial) or your environment variables are not set correctly.

Resolution

Look for your fonts dir, this is is usually /usr/share/fonts If it is empty you will need to download a free TTF font.

• Check the environment variables $GDFONTPATH and $GNUPLOT_DEFAULT_GDFONT

$ ls /usr/share/fonts/truetype
arielfree.ttf
$ GDFONTPATH='/usr/share/fonts/truetype'
$ GNUPLOT_DEFAULT_GDFONT=arielfree

References

http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/faq/faq.html#SECTION00091000000000000000

Category:Linux