R help - Mar 2003 - Followup: copy-paste graphics from R to Word on Mac OS X

After trying numerous options, I'm just about at my wits end.

The most frequent suggestion was to export to a postscript or PDF file 
and import that into Word.

However, no matter what I did or how I did it, the results were 
extraordinarily ugly and somewhat time-consuming.

What I've tried so far:

1.  Copy and paste from the R graphics output window into Word (in Mac 
OS X), this is the worst result.

2.  Use pdf() to create a pdf file, then import (Insert | Picture | 
 From File ...) into Word.  This generated the second-worst results.  
Note, that if I print the .pdf file without importing, the results are 
OK.

3.  Use pdf() to create a pdf file, use MacGSView to convert to .tiff, 
then import into Word.  This provided the third-worst results.  Note 
that the .tiff file is jaggy too.

4.  Use pdf() to create a pdf file, use the full-blown version of 
Acrobat to convert to .tiff, then import into Word.  This provided the 
best, but still ugly results.  Note that the .tiff file is jaggy too.

It is conceivable that this is a Mac OS X problem, but I'm not 
convinced considering how well it handles other graphics.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Begin forwarded message:
> From: Eric Fruits <fruits at portland.econw.com>
> Date: Fri Feb 21, 2003  10:32:52  AM US/Pacific
> To: r-help at lists.R-project.org
> Subject: Copy-paste graphics from R to Word on Mac OS X
>
> Greetings:
>
> 	I'm (very) new  to R.
>
> 	One of the features of R that I really like is R's ability to quickly 
> generate very good looking graphics.  However, I've noticed that when 
> I attempt to copy and paste the graphs from the R graphics output 
> window into Word (in Mac OS X), the resulting picture is very jaggy.
>
> 	I'm aware of the various options such as dev2bitmap, but I'd
really
> like to be able to do a quick copy and paste without switching among 
> various applications or creating extraneous files.
>
> 	Thanks.
>
> -- 
> Eric Fruits, Ph.D.
> Senior Economist & Project Manager
> ECONorthwest - Portland
>

On Thu, Mar 06, 2003 at 10:08:34AM -0800, Eric Fruits wrote:
[four permutations on pdf() snipped]

Have you tried other graphics drivers?  help(png) and help(jpeg) might
be other options.  I'd suggest playing with the "height" and
"width"
options. 

It sounds like Word for OS-X makes whatever you're importing into a
bitmap, and does a bad job of it.  Starting with a non-vector format
at large resolution might make for some huge Word documents, but might
make the pictures prettier.

Cheers

Jason
-- 
Indigo Industrial Controls Ltd.
64-21-343-545
jasont at indigoindustrial.co.nz

I've found Word imports png pretty well.  David Brahm recently suggested
playing with the resolution and so on -- you could look it up in the mail
list archives -- but I've gotten acceptable results (on simple graphs) with
the defaults.

Hope this helps,

Matt Wiener
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Fruits [mailto:fruits at portland.econw.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 1:09 PM
To: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: [R] Followup: copy-paste graphics from R to Word on Mac OS X


After trying numerous options, I'm just about at my wits end.

The most frequent suggestion was to export to a postscript or PDF file 
and import that into Word.

However, no matter what I did or how I did it, the results were 
extraordinarily ugly and somewhat time-consuming.

What I've tried so far:

1.  Copy and paste from the R graphics output window into Word (in Mac 
OS X), this is the worst result.

2.  Use pdf() to create a pdf file, then import (Insert | Picture | 
 From File ...) into Word.  This generated the second-worst results.  
Note, that if I print the .pdf file without importing, the results are 
OK.

3.  Use pdf() to create a pdf file, use MacGSView to convert to .tiff, 
then import into Word.  This provided the third-worst results.  Note 
that the .tiff file is jaggy too.

4.  Use pdf() to create a pdf file, use the full-blown version of 
Acrobat to convert to .tiff, then import into Word.  This provided the 
best, but still ugly results.  Note that the .tiff file is jaggy too.

It is conceivable that this is a Mac OS X problem, but I'm not 
convinced considering how well it handles other graphics.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Begin forwarded message:
> From: Eric Fruits <fruits at portland.econw.com>
> Date: Fri Feb 21, 2003  10:32:52  AM US/Pacific
> To: r-help at lists.R-project.org
> Subject: Copy-paste graphics from R to Word on Mac OS X
>
> Greetings:
>
> 	I'm (very) new  to R.
>
> 	One of the features of R that I really like is R's ability to
quickly 
> generate very good looking graphics.  However, I've noticed that when 
> I attempt to copy and paste the graphs from the R graphics output 
> window into Word (in Mac OS X), the resulting picture is very jaggy.
>
> 	I'm aware of the various options such as dev2bitmap, but I'd
really
> like to be able to do a quick copy and paste without switching among 
> various applications or creating extraneous files.
>
> 	Thanks.
>
> -- 
> Eric Fruits, Ph.D.
> Senior Economist & Project Manager
> ECONorthwest - Portland
>
______________________________________________
R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had the same problem and came to this solution:

- use pdf() to create a pdf file
- open PDF in Freehand,
        during open replace fonts: ZapfDingsbat for Zapf Dingsbat
- save as PDF or EPS and import this into word - bingo

The pdf files created by pdf() seem less than perfect - on my system 
(Mac OS X) Illustrator refuses open these files and in Preview or 
Word any axis label disappear. Maybe someone here knows enough about 
the PDF format to suggest how to fix this rather complicated path.

Martin

This is misinformation: the font name in the PDF specifications is
ZapfDingbats, and that is what the R driver uses, as in

<<
/Type /Font
/Subtype /Type1
/Name /F6
/BaseFont /ZapfDingbats
>>
I hope you have sent a suitable bug report to the supplier of your tools.x

On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Martin Renner wrote:
> I had the same problem and came to this solution:
> 
> - use pdf() to create a pdf file
> - open PDF in Freehand,
>         during open replace fonts: ZapfDingsbat for Zapf Dingsbat
> - save as PDF or EPS and import this into word - bingo
> 
> The pdf files created by pdf() seem less than perfect - on my system 
> (Mac OS X) Illustrator refuses open these files and in Preview or 
> Word any axis label disappear. Maybe someone here knows enough about 
> the PDF format to suggest how to fix this rather complicated path.
-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

I've encountered some of the same issues with jaggy graphics.  Here
is what I have found to work pretty well:

Short and sweet:

Use the bitmap() function with res=200 to create png files.

Some explaination:

As far as I can tell, png(), jpg(), and friends do not allow you to
set the resolution.  However, you can set the resolution using
bitmap().  I've had good results with res=200.

The tricky part about using bitmap() is that it relies on having
GhostScript installed and may require you to set an environment
variable (Will this have any chance of working on a Mac?)

On my Windows 2000 system, I have

        R_GSCMD = c:\gs\gs8.00\bin\gswin32c.exe

I can then create a png image that looks decent like this:

fname <- "sineWave.png"
x <- seq(0,6.5, .1)
y <- sin(x)

bitmap(file=fname, type="png256", width=4, height=4, res=200)
dev.off()

Final note:
If you want to automate plot creation, you may need to utilize the
Sys.sleep() function.  If you call a script like this:

        rterm --slave --no-save --no-restore < autoPNGplot.r

then R may complete before GhostScript gets a chance to start and
GhostScript will crash because it can't find the files it was told
to process.  Sleeping for a few seconds seems to take care of this.
You can test this yourself by trying to run the above sine wave
script redirected into rterm.  For me it crashes unless I add
Sys.sleep(2) at the end.

Hope these notes are somewhat helpful.

+ seth

Eric:

I'm working with R in an IBook with Jaguar 10.2.4. When it comes to 
ghapics manipulation the best thing for me (and I mean a real good result)  
was to save my graphics either as bitmaps or as png's files with the 
"bitmap" or the "png" devices, respectively.

Example:

x <- 1:10
y <- 11:20
plot(x,y)
dev.print(bitmap, file = "dummy.bmp", res = 600)

I should tell you that I've compiled R using fink. I've to download a 
bunch of additional software (X11, ghoscript, etc., always using fink). 
But the results are just great.

Have a look at the list files, and at the "Devices" help in the R 
software. If you need additional help with graphics or fink please let me 
know. 

Regards.



On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Eric Fruits wrote:
> After trying numerous options, I'm just about at my wits end.
> 
> The most frequent suggestion was to export to a postscript or PDF file 
> and import that into Word.
> 
> However, no matter what I did or how I did it, the results were 
> extraordinarily ugly and somewhat time-consuming.
> 
> What I've tried so far:
> 
> 1.  Copy and paste from the R graphics output window into Word (in Mac 
> OS X), this is the worst result.
> 
> 2.  Use pdf() to create a pdf file, then import (Insert | Picture | 
>  From File ...) into Word.  This generated the second-worst results.  
> Note, that if I print the .pdf file without importing, the results are 
> OK.
> 
> 3.  Use pdf() to create a pdf file, use MacGSView to convert to .tiff, 
> then import into Word.  This provided the third-worst results.  Note 
> that the .tiff file is jaggy too.
> 
> 4.  Use pdf() to create a pdf file, use the full-blown version of 
> Acrobat to convert to .tiff, then import into Word.  This provided the 
> best, but still ugly results.  Note that the .tiff file is jaggy too.
> 
> It is conceivable that this is a Mac OS X problem, but I'm not 
> convinced considering how well it handles other graphics.
> 
> Any suggestions are appreciated.
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> > From: Eric Fruits <fruits at portland.econw.com>
> > Date: Fri Feb 21, 2003  10:32:52  AM US/Pacific
> > To: r-help at lists.R-project.org
> > Subject: Copy-paste graphics from R to Word on Mac OS X
> >
> > Greetings:
> >
> > 	I'm (very) new  to R.
> >
> > 	One of the features of R that I really like is R's ability to
quickly
> > generate very good looking graphics.  However, I've noticed that
when
> > I attempt to copy and paste the graphs from the R graphics output 
> > window into Word (in Mac OS X), the resulting picture is very jaggy.
> >
> > 	I'm aware of the various options such as dev2bitmap, but I'd
really
> > like to be able to do a quick copy and paste without switching among 
> > various applications or creating extraneous files.
> >
> > 	Thanks.
> >
> > -- 
> > Eric Fruits, Ph.D.
> > Senior Economist & Project Manager
> > ECONorthwest - Portland
> >
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> 
-- 
Ulises M. Alvarez
LAB. DE ONDAS DE CHOQUE
FISICA APLICADA Y TECNOLOGIA AVANZADA
UNAM
umalvarez at fata.unam.mx