R help - Feb 2021 - ISO recommendations for plot output format from R to MS Word

Hi, a quick follow-up about the question about putting R-generated
figures into MS Word.

I have found by experimenting with some figures and documents that if
I import an SVG figure generated by svglite (didn't try other output
functions), I can view it okay in my installation of MS Word (Word for
Mac 16.16.10), and it looks okay in MS Word for Windows (circa 2016 or
2018) on a laptop I have, and two other people can view it okay (one
on Mac and one on Windows). So that seems safe enough to go ahead.
YMMV.

I am informed that MS Word is actually storing a bitmap image of the
SVG figure, which is displayed by non-SVG-aware versions of Word. So
that seems like a good safeguard.

For the record, I converted the SVG to EPS, PNG, PDF, WMF, and EMF via
Imagemagick. EPS and PNG were tolerable, PDF was too fuzzy, and WMF
and EMF, at least as generated, could not be displayed (I was a little
surprised by that). There are, no doubt, many unanswered questions
here, which unfortunately I cannot take the time to explore right now.

In summary I found that importing SVG generated by svglite into MS
Word for Mac seems to work okay to generate a generally-readable file.
Perhaps this experience is useful in some way to others.

best,

Robert Dodier

I did not see the original thread so this may have been discussed.

I would think that it would be more seamless to use Rmarkdown.
Simply put the plotting code into an Rmarkdown file and send it
straight to Word. Is there a reason why this is not a viable option?

-- 
Kevin E. Thorpe
Head of Biostatistics,  Applied Health Research Centre (AHRC)
Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael's
Assistant Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health
University of Toronto
email: kevin.thorpe at utoronto.ca  Tel: 416.864.5776  Fax: 416.864.3016
> On Feb 18, 2021, at 12:50 PM, Robert Dodier <robert.dodier at
gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> EXTERNAL EMAIL:
> 
> Hi, a quick follow-up about the question about putting R-generated
> figures into MS Word.
> 
> I have found by experimenting with some figures and documents that if
> I import an SVG figure generated by svglite (didn't try other output
> functions), I can view it okay in my installation of MS Word (Word for
> Mac 16.16.10), and it looks okay in MS Word for Windows (circa 2016 or
> 2018) on a laptop I have, and two other people can view it okay (one
> on Mac and one on Windows). So that seems safe enough to go ahead.
> YMMV.
> 
> I am informed that MS Word is actually storing a bitmap image of the
> SVG figure, which is displayed by non-SVG-aware versions of Word. So
> that seems like a good safeguard.
> 
> For the record, I converted the SVG to EPS, PNG, PDF, WMF, and EMF via
> Imagemagick. EPS and PNG were tolerable, PDF was too fuzzy, and WMF
> and EMF, at least as generated, could not be displayed (I was a little
> surprised by that). There are, no doubt, many unanswered questions
> here, which unfortunately I cannot take the time to explore right now.
> 
> In summary I found that importing SVG generated by svglite into MS
> Word for Mac seems to work okay to generate a generally-readable file.
> Perhaps this experience is useful in some way to others.
> 
> best,
> 
> Robert Dodier
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

The native graphics format in Microsoft Office (including Word) is EMF
(Enhanced MetaFile), which is an enhanced version of WMF (Windows MetaFile).
This is a VECTOR format with embedded scalable fonts, so it scales perfectly
to all sizes. R will output EMF graph files using Philip Johnson's
library(devEMF), which is on CRAN. These files can be imported into Word
using Insert > Pictures > ....

These images are "perfect" if the Word document is converted (by Word
itself) to PDF, with unbitmapped fonts and lines, so they look perfect even
if you zoom the PDF to 600%.

I haven't tried lately, but in the past the driver generated huge files from
ggplot2, but small files from the graphics and grid packages.

Don Macnaughton


-----Original Message-----
From: R-help <r-help-bounces at r-project.org> On Behalf Of Robert Dodier
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2021 12:50 PM
To: r-help at r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R] ISO recommendations for plot output format from R to MS
Word

Hi, a quick follow-up about the question about putting R-generated figures
into MS Word.

I have found by experimenting with some figures and documents that if I
import an SVG figure generated by svglite (didn't try other output
functions), I can view it okay in my installation of MS Word (Word for Mac
16.16.10), and it looks okay in MS Word for Windows (circa 2016 or
2018) on a laptop I have, and two other people can view it okay (one on Mac
and one on Windows). So that seems safe enough to go ahead.
YMMV.

I am informed that MS Word is actually storing a bitmap image of the SVG
figure, which is displayed by non-SVG-aware versions of Word. So that seems
like a good safeguard.

For the record, I converted the SVG to EPS, PNG, PDF, WMF, and EMF via
Imagemagick. EPS and PNG were tolerable, PDF was too fuzzy, and WMF and EMF,
at least as generated, could not be displayed (I was a little surprised by
that). There are, no doubt, many unanswered questions here, which
unfortunately I cannot take the time to explore right now.

In summary I found that importing SVG generated by svglite into MS Word for
Mac seems to work okay to generate a generally-readable file.
Perhaps this experience is useful in some way to others.

best,

Robert Dodier

______________________________________________
R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.