However, 1. the editing of .ps files once they have been inserted into Word seems to be limited compared to using Windows metafiles. 2. R on Windows does not provide the capability to do right click copy with a .ps file so you have to right click save the file and then insert it into Word which is a bit less convenient than using the clipboard and it leaves a file around that you still have to delete. --- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 12:29:24 -0500 From: Frank E Harrell Jr <feh3k at spamcop.net> To: <MSchwartz at medanalytics.com> Cc: <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch> Subject: Re: [R] R: Including R plots in a Microsoft Word document On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:08:00 -0600
Marc Schwartz <MSchwartz at medanalytics.com> wrote:
On Fri, 2004-02-20 at 09:54, Mahmoud K. Okasha wrote:
Greetings List, I am conducting some large simulations using R. As a result, I get many plots but I'm having some trouble with including some of them in a Microsoft Word document. Can any one tell me the easiest method of having copies of the R-graphs in the Word documents? Best regards Mahmoud
A couple of different ways: 1. If you actually need to see the graphics within the document and/or send the .doc file to someone who needs to be able to see the plots as they appear, then you should use Windows Metafile format images. Since these are vector format files, you can resize them as required on your pages. Bitmapped images (ie .BMP/.PNG) will distort as you resize them. You can generate these by plotting directly into an R plot window and then copy (ie. right mouse click) and paste into the Word document using the Windows clipboard, or generate the plot files directly using the win.metafile() function. 2. If you will be generating hard copies of the documents using a PS printer, you can generate the graphics as EPS files using the postscript() function. Word can import EPS files, but you will see them only as place holders in your document (ie. a frame box) since Word cannot actually interpret the images for display. Keep in mind that the function has very specific argument requirements to enable the generation of EPS files. These include:
Newer versions of Word will display postscript and pdf images on-screen, so I think these are the way to go. -Frank