Try this: dev.control(displaylist="enable") plot(1:4) identify(1:4) # perform some interactions which label points myplot <- recordPlot() plot(1:10) # overwrite first plot myplot # at this point the original plot is back with your annotations --- Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 10:17:39 -0500 From: Jeffrey J. Hallman <m1jjh00 at frb.gov> To: Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> Cc: <jhallman at frb.gov>, <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch> Subject: Re: [R] dev.print and X11(canvas = "black") [...] I know that R is internally maintaining a display list. Is there a way to access that without dropping into C? And what's in it, anyway? Jeff