Unpredictable EPS->PDF rotation (PR#4460)

arnima@u.washington.edu writes:

Dear r-bugs,

When I create EPS files, they sometimes appear rotated in my LaTeX PDF
document and sometimes they don't. Two examples:

## x1.eps is not rotated in LaTeX
x <- seq(-1, 1, length=100)
postscript("c:/x1.eps", height=3, width=4,
           horizontal=FALSE, onefile=FALSE, paper="special")
plot(x, dnorm(x), type="l")
dev.off()

## x2.eps is not rotated in LaTeX
x <- seq(-2, 2, length=100)
postscript("c:/x2.eps", height=3, width=4,
           horizontal=FALSE, onefile=FALSE, paper="special")
plot(x, dnorm(x), type="l")
dev.off()

By LaTeX PDF, I am referring to the dvips->ghostscript pathway, but x2.eps
also rotates when distilled into PDF outside LaTeX. I have tried
ghostscript and acrobat, placed on a page or cropped, so the problem does
not seem to be confounded with particular PDF distillation software.

I'm aware of the pdf() device in R, but EPS files are a widely used format
to share scientific graphics, often winding up embedded in a PDF document
at a later point in the hands of an editor.

If at all possible, a more predictable postscript generator would be
appreciated, where EPS figures would not rotate when embedded in PDF
documents.

I can reproduce the effect on RedHat 8, but I'm at a loss as to

explain it. The headers and bounding boxes of the two .eps files are
identical and to the best of my eyesight they are also using the same
coordinate system.