Boxes replacing Text on saved images on Windows 10

(Note: This issue was corrected in IDL 8.7.1.)

Problem:

On Windows 10 systems, text within a plot or image that is created using IDL Graphics functions (such as plot, text, etc..) or the Object Graphics can be replaced by blocks of solid color when saved to a file. An example of what this might look like is shown below:

Discussion: 

These boxes are caused by a bug that occurs on some, but not all, Windows 10 systems (Bug ID# IDL-69870). There are a few workarounds to this issue which are listed below:

1) Run IDL in Windows 7 Compatibility mode. To do this you can follow the procedure below:

- Right click on IDL icon and go to “open file location”
- Right click on the program icon in the File Explorer and select “Properties”
- Select the Compatibility tab
- Click the checkbox next to “Run this in compatibility mode for:” and make sure “Windows 7” is selected
- Click Apply 

NOTE: This change needs to be made for IDL Command Line and the IDL Workbench (IDLDE) individually. 

2) You can rotate the text slightly using the TEXT_ORIENTATION keyword. You can rotate the text as little as 1E-5 and it should fix this issue. 

3) You can use a non-true type font such as Hershey. For example:

a=window(DIMENSIONS=[256,256],BACKGROUND_COLOR=[0,150,0], FONT_COLOR=[255,255,255])
b=text(100,100, 'Test', /device, Font_name='Hershey 3')

 

Written by DS (4/2/2018), Reviewed by BC (4/2/2018)