# How to display chinese labels?

**URL:** <https://igraph.discourse.group/t/how-to-display-chinese-labels/462>\
**Category:** Usage\
**Tags:** Python\
**Created:** [25 September 2020 09:15 UTC](https://igraph.discourse.group/t/how-to-display-chinese-labels/462 "2020-09-25T09:15:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![slaxes\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c6cbf5/32.png) [@slaxes\_G](https://igraph.discourse.group/u/slaxes_G)\
**Post date:** [25 September 2020 09:15 UTC](https://igraph.discourse.group/t/how-to-display-chinese-labels/462/1 "2020-09-25T09:15:49Z")

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I am trying to generate and display a graph with chinese labels. In matplotlib we can set “plt.rcParams” to support it, so how can I set system form when using igraph?

Platform:  
MacOS 10.14.6  
cairocffi 1.1.0  
python-igraph 0.8.2

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/igraph/original/1X/1d02d42be992283c24d9be51806b350be5eba8a0.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jboynyc](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/igraph.discourse.group/jboynyc/32/240_2.png) [@jboynyc](https://igraph.discourse.group/u/jboynyc)\
**Post date:** [29 September 2020 09:14 UTC](https://igraph.discourse.group/t/how-to-display-chinese-labels/462/2 "2020-09-29T09:14:26Z")

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This is a [known issue](https://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/igraph-help/2014-05/msg00026.html) with the fonts Cairo uses. The workaround, as far as I known, is either to use a Cairo context with a different font, or two write out an SVG file and change the font in the SVG output.