R help - Sep 2010 - Creating publication-quality plots for use in Microsoft Word

Hi everyone,

I am trying to make some publication-quality plots for use in Microsoft
Word, but I am having trouble creating high-quality plots that are supported
by Microsoft Word.

If I use the R plot function to create the figure, the lines are jagged, and
the picture is not of high quality (same with JPEG(), TIFF(), and PNG()
functions).  I have tried using the Cairo package, but it distorts my dashed
lines, and the win.metafile results in a picture of terrible quality.  The
only way I have succeeded in getting a high quality picture in a file is by
using the pdf() function to save the plot as a pdf file, but all my attempts
to convert the image in the pdf file to a TIFF or other file type accepted
by Word result in considerably degraded quality.  Do you have any
suggestions for creating publication-quality plots in R that can be placed
in Word documents?  What packages, functions (along with options), and/or
conversions would you use?  Thanks so much for your help!
-- 
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Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

There's many ways to solve this, but you are close to one already:  Make the
pdf, put the cursor where you want it in the document, then on the menu bar
Insert --> Picture --> From File... And navigate to the file.  This works
on
the Mac, and seems to store the picture internally in a different way that
selecting the graphic in a viewer and cutting and pasting.  Quality is
top-notch and the graphic is clickable to be resized (and retains it's
quality).

HTH.  Bryan
*************
Bryan Hanson
Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry
DePauw University, Greencastle IN USA



On 9/15/10 10:38 AM, "dadrivr" <dadrivr at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I am trying to make some publication-quality plots for use in Microsoft
> Word, but I am having trouble creating high-quality plots that are
supported
> by Microsoft Word.
> 
> If I use the R plot function to create the figure, the lines are jagged,
and
> the picture is not of high quality (same with JPEG(), TIFF(), and PNG()
> functions).  I have tried using the Cairo package, but it distorts my
dashed
> lines, and the win.metafile results in a picture of terrible quality.  The
> only way I have succeeded in getting a high quality picture in a file is by
> using the pdf() function to save the plot as a pdf file, but all my
attempts
> to convert the image in the pdf file to a TIFF or other file type accepted
> by Word result in considerably degraded quality.  Do you have any
> suggestions for creating publication-quality plots in R that can be placed
> in Word documents?  What packages, functions (along with options), and/or
> conversions would you use?  Thanks so much for your help!

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 10:38 AM, dadrivr <dadrivr at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I am trying to make some publication-quality plots for use in Microsoft
> Word, but I am having trouble creating high-quality plots that are
supported
> by Microsoft Word.
>
> If I use the R plot function to create the figure, the lines are jagged,
and
> the picture is not of high quality (same with JPEG(), TIFF(), and PNG()
> functions). ?I have tried using the Cairo package, but it distorts my
dashed
> lines, and the win.metafile results in a picture of terrible quality. ?The
> only way I have succeeded in getting a high quality picture in a file is by
> using the pdf() function to save the plot as a pdf file, but all my
attempts
> to convert the image in the pdf file to a TIFF or other file type accepted
> by Word result in considerably degraded quality. ?Do you have any
> suggestions for creating publication-quality plots in R that can be placed
> in Word documents? ?What packages, functions (along with options), and/or
> conversions would you use? ?Thanks so much for your help!

Those are all bitmapped formats. For best quality you want a
vector-based format. This link here discusses the difference:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070221152152/http://www.stc-saz.org/resources/0203_graphics.pdf

Microsoft's metafile formats are vector formats that work well in
Word.  Try savePlot with type = "wmf" or type = "emf" as the
argument
or right click a graphic in R and choose one of the metafile options.


-- 
Statistics & Software Consulting
GKX Group, GKX Associates Inc.
tel: 1-877-GKX-GROUP
email: ggrothendieck at gmail.com

On 9/15/10 10:38 AM, dadrivr wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I am trying to make some publication-quality plots for use in Microsoft
> Word, but I am having trouble creating high-quality plots that are
supported
> by Microsoft Word.
>
> If I use the R plot function to create the figure, the lines are jagged,
and
> the picture is not of high quality (same with JPEG(), TIFF(), and PNG()
> functions).  I have tried using the Cairo package, but it distorts my
dashed
> lines, and the win.metafile results in a picture of terrible quality.  The
> only way I have succeeded in getting a high quality picture in a file is by
> using the pdf() function to save the plot as a pdf file, but all my
attempts
> to convert the image in the pdf file to a TIFF or other file type accepted
> by Word result in considerably degraded quality.  Do you have any
> suggestions for creating publication-quality plots in R that can be placed
> in Word documents?  What packages, functions (along with options), and/or
> conversions would you use?  Thanks so much for your help!
Another option I've used is to export to PDF (which seems to give the 
best quality) and then use the (free) Imagemagick program to convert the 
PDF to high-resolution PNG. This worked for some involved heatmaps that 
were submitted to a journal. Imagemagick can be downloaded directly for 
Windows or via Cygwin.

Suppose your figure is in fig1.pdf. You can use the following command 
(once Imagemagick is downloaded and in your path):

system("convert -density 300x300 fig1.pdf fig1.png")



-- 

Abhijit Dasgupta, PhD
Director and Principal Statistician
ARAASTAT
Ph: 301.385.3067
E: adasgupta at araastat.com
W: http://www.araastat.com