# tikzDevice
---
## Description
The tikzDevice package new graphics device for R which enables direct
output of graphics in a LaTeX-friendly way. Plotting commands issued
by R functions are transformed into LaTeX code blocks. These blocks
are interpreted with the help of TikZ-- a graphics library for TeX and
friends written by Till Tantau.
The tikzDevice supports three main modes of output:
- Figure chunks: placed in .tex files and suitable for inclusion in
LaTeX documents via the \input{} command.
- Stand alone figures: Complete LaTeX documents containing figure
code that can be compiled into stand-alone images. Pages are
cropped to the size of the figure using the preview package.
- Console output: TikZ code is returned directly to the R console
as a character vector for further manipulation.
## Beta Notice
The tikzDevice is currently flagged as a beta work. The package is
reasonably stable and has been used by the authors to produce graphics
for academic publications for over a year. The reason for beta status
is that there are several open design issues- two of which are:
- Providing support for UTF8 text.
- Supporting TeX variants other than LaTeX.
Resolving these issues may require changes to the tikzDevice that
break backwards compatibility with previous versions. The beta flag
is a reminder that such changes may occur- although we will strive to
avoid them if possible.
The beta flag will be removed upon release of version 1.0. At this
time maintaining backwards compatibility will become a primary concern.
## Obtaining the Package
Stable versions of the tikzDevice may be downloaded from CRAN:
install.packages( 'tikzDevice' )
Development versions may be obtained from R-Forge:
install.packages( 'tikzDevice',
repos='http://r-forge.r-project.net' )
## Reporting Bugs and Getting Help
The tikzDevice has a dedicated mailing list courtesy of R-Forge. The
mailing list is the easiest way to get answers for questions related
to usage:
tikzdevice-bugs @at@ lists.r-forge.r-project.org
Primary development takes place on GitHub. Bugs and feature requests
may be made by opening issues at the primary repository:
http://github.com/Sharpie/RTikZDevice/issues
Adventurous users are encouraged to fork the repository and contribute
to the development of the device!
## Latest Changes
*See the CHANGELOG for changes that occurred in previous releases*
---
### Version 0.5.0 Beta
---
#### Contributors
The following people contributed to this release of the tikzDevice:
- Lorenzo Isella contributed bug reports and examples that led to the
discovery of a bug in fontsize calculations that appeared when
certain LaTeX commands were used to change the active font.
- Vivianne Vilar for spotting spelling and grammar errors in the
vignette.
- Gabor Grothendieck for the idea for sending output to the screen
for use with sink() (i.e. the "console" option)
#### New Features
- "console" option for directing tikz() output back into the R console
instead of to a file.
- Preliminary support for a "sanitize" option which allows automatic
escaping of characters that have special meaning to TeX like "$" and
"%".
- tikzAnnotate() and tikzCoord() functions. tikzAnnotate() allows
arbitrary LaTeX code to be injected into the output stream of an
active tikz() graphics device. tikzCoord() is a wrapper for
tikzAnnotate() that inserts named locations into the graphics code.
These locations may be referenced by other TikZ drawing commands.
#### Bug Fixes
- Removed bad colon in the DESCRIPTION file.
- Proper fontsize calculations now include ps from par() and fontsize
from gpar(). This fixes issues with lattice-based graphics such as
ggplot2.
- Metrics are now calculated properly when commands like
\renewcommand\rmdefault are used to adjust the active font.
- Sanitization of % signs in labels.
- The package no longer overwrites user customizations set in places like
.Rprofile with default values when loaded.
- Attempting to use new graphics functions such as rasterImage() now
produces error messages instead of fatal crashes in R 2.11.0 and
above.
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