How do I change font in pgfplots with plain XeTeX?

Question

I have tried:

\font\figfn="Myriad Pro:mapping=tex-text" at 8pt
\input tikz
\tikzset{font=\figfn}
\input pgfplots
\pgfplotsset{
  width=\hsize,
  compat=1.3,
  every axis label={font=\figfn},
  tick label style={font=\figfn},
  label style={font=\figfn},
  legend style={font=\figfn}
}
\tikzpicture[font=\figfn]
\axis[ybar,bar width=2pt,x tick label style={/pgf/number format/1000 sep=}]
  \addplot coordinates {(2009,18) (2008,28) (2007,12) (2006,9) (2005,11)
    (2004,12) (2003,4) (2002,4) (2001,5) (2000,10) (1999,5) (1998,2) (1997,4)
    (1996,5) (1995,11) (1994,11) (1993,14) (1992,10) (1991,10) (1990,4)};
  \addplot coordinates {(2009,13) (2008,15) (2007,13) (2006,16) (2005,11)
    (2004,7) (2003,4) (2002,4) (2001,2) (2000,6) (1999,11) (1998,5) (1997,13)
    (1996,10) (1995,3) (1994,6) (1993,16) (1992,15) (1991,15) (1990,7)};
\endaxis
\endtikzpicture
\bye

No font changes (you can see my growing frustration from the above code, where I try to apply the font in every place I can imagine).

Answer 1

Here is an experiment of mine:

%\font\figfn="Myriad Pro:mapping=tex-text" at 8pt
\def\figfn{\tt}
\input tikz
\tikzset{font=\figfn}
\input pgfplots
\pgfplotsset{
  width=\hsize,
  compat=1.3,
  every axis label={font=\figfn},
  tick label style={font=\figfn},
  label style={font=\figfn},
  legend style={font=\figfn},
  title=A title,
  xticklabel style={/pgf/number format/assume math mode},
  yticklabel style={/pgf/number format/assume math mode},
}
\tikzpicture[font=\figfn]
\axis[ybar,bar width=2pt,x tick label style={/pgf/number format/1000 sep=}]
  \addplot coordinates {(2009,18) (2008,28) (2007,12) (2006,9) (2005,11)
    (2004,12) (2003,4) (2002,4) (2001,5) (2000,10) (1999,5) (1998,2) (1997,4)
    (1996,5) (1995,11) (1994,11) (1993,14) (1992,10) (1991,10) (1990,4)};
  \addplot coordinates {(2009,13) (2008,15) (2007,13) (2006,16) (2005,11)
    (2004,7) (2003,4) (2002,4) (2001,2) (2000,6) (1999,11) (1998,5) (1997,13)
    (1996,10) (1995,3) (1994,6) (1993,16) (1992,15) (1991,15) (1990,7)};
\endaxis
\endtikzpicture
\bye

it worked fine. You'll note that I substituted your font with a default font. This works directly for the graph's title.

The tick labels are trickier, though: the correct way would be to exchange the MATH FONT because they are typeset in math mode by default. For LaTeX, this typically requires to load a different package which does the job (there are other questions related to this very question throughout LaTeX internet forums).

If you do want to use a text font for tick labels, you have to use text-mode for these labels. The /pgf/number format/assume math mode key used in the example above tells the number formatter that it does not need to change into math mode - and since you did not explicitly activate math mode, it will typeset tick labels with the text font (for pgfplots revision older than 1.5, you will have to add xticklabel=\pgfmathprintnumber{\tick} and yticklabel=\pgfmathprintnumber{\tick} to get the same effect).