How to put nice R graphics into powerpoint

Well it would be more logical for Microsoft to support pdf! I've  
certainly complained loud enough, but I don't count on them doing  
something for me. Unless pdf becomes important on Windows, I suppose.

As for a R-based solution, a pict device would solve my problem just  
as well as a wmf device.

Denis
Le 10 f?vr. 2005, ? 19:04, Dan Putler a ?crit :

Hi All,

My guess is the supported vector format is Windows enhanced meta file,
which R for Windows will produce. Unfortunately, Microsoft Office is  
the
one thing most of us can't get away from, try as we might. As a  
result,
an argument could be made to have a device for this format on the Mac
side if the Windows code could easily be ported.

Dan

On Thu, 2005-02-10 at 09:20, stefano iacus wrote:

On Feb 10, 2005, at 6:10 PM, Denis Chabot wrote:

Hi Stefano,

Bitmaps is what I'd like to avoid.

Preview seems to be using QuickTime for the translation from pdf to
pict, and the result is bitmap. Too bad though.

yes, but as Thomas pointed out png is not that bad even with LaTeX.
What kind of vectorial format does PowerPoint support (if any) ?

I'm not used to PowerPoint, but for example, with KeyNote (the apple
counterpart) you can use pdf graphics directly and you still have an
option to export the slides in PowerPoint.
Could this be another solution?

stefano

Denis
Le Jeudi, 10 f??vr 2005, ?? 18:05 Europe/Paris, stefano iacus a  
??crit :

You can load the pdf file produce by R in the standard Previewer of
Mac OS X and export to (almost) whatever format you like including
bitmaps


stefano

On Feb 10, 2005, at 5:29 PM, Denis Chabot wrote:

Thank you Andrew and Thomas,

I have used png produced by Illustrator in much the way you
described and the results were not very good. I'll try again  
because
I don't remember if I was given an option to chose the overall  
size
in pixels. If I can, then I'll increase the count. Alternatively,  
on
my iMac at home where R11 is installed, I'll resort to saving
directly in png but increasing the pixel count, as suggested by
Thomas.

Still, if the information in the pdf produced by R is vector based
(it is still perfectly sharp when viewed at 1600% in Acrobat), why
can't I find a way to transform such pdf in vector-based pict?  
That
format must be able to handle such plots. After all, I also make
plots in KaleidaGraph, and they were very small vector-based pict
files. They looked gorgeous in Powerpoint at any zoom setting. I
also use Aabel which gives you the option of saving plots as pdf  
or
pict. I chose the later when I need to insert in PowerPoint, and  
the
former for LaTeX. Quality is good either way. Maybe I'll check if
there is a "graphics" discussion on Apple's site. If I manage to
learn something useful I'll report back.

Denis
Le Jeudi, 10 f??vr 2005, ?? 17:13 Europe/Paris, Andrew Beckerman a
??crit :

Denis - I use the following rather convoluted method with OS
10.3.8, Illustrator CS, and R2.0.1.

command-c copies a figure from the quartz window.  Open this file
in preview and export it as a pdf file (don't know why i do
this....).  use illustrator, and the command <place> from the  
file
menu to insert it in a new document.  Choose <save for microsoft
office> from the file menu in illustrator. this produces a png  
file
that plays nicely, cross platform, with Word and PP. variations
abound, but the goal is to get something presentable in  
illustrator
and use its save for office option.....

I noticed that preview has a png choice from export, but I've not
yet played around with its options to see if I can get the same
quality that the save for Microsoft Office option produces in
Illustrator.

Cheers
andrew


On 10 Feb 2005, at 15:50, Denis Chabot wrote:

Hi,

I really like the nice vector-based pdf graphics I get in R.

However, PowerPoint seems to be unable to read them as vector
graphics and rasterizes them, making them quite "fuzzy" and  
ugly.
Granted, the problem lies with Microsoft, but in the mean time
what is the best workaround? I'd like to do better than  
producing
png from within R (especially that only my iMac has X11, my very
old PowerBook does not).

I am still able to show vector graphics in pict format in
PowerPoint. So it should be possible to extract the vectorized
plot from the pdf and save it as pict, still vectorized.

However opening the R-produced pdf in Illustrator and saving as
pict produces a file quite a bit bigger than the original pdf,
suggesting it was saved as raster pict instead of vector pict.  
It
shows up in Powerpoint just as ugly as if it was inserted  
directly
as pdf. This is true with Illustrator CS (aka v11 I think) used
either under 10.2.8 or 10.3.7. It is also true when using
GraphicConverter 5 and Preview (Jaguar's version, I think it is
also true with the Panther version) to go from pdf to pict.

I fired up Canvas (old, version 8) and it did manage to save
something that was vectorized (i.e. very sharp when viewing at
400% in PowerPoint) but the empty circles I used as symbols were
not filled blacks, the dashes of dashed lines had become  
"wiggly",
text orientation was unacceptably changed, etc. etc.

So does anyone know of a technique to produce vector graphics  
that
insert nicely in PowerPoint, either directly from R or by
converting a pdf produced by R into something else?

Sincerely,

Denis Chabot

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Dr. Andrew Beckerman
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield,
Alfred Denny Building, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK
ph +44 (0)114 222 0026; fx +44 (0)114 222 0002
http://www.shef.ac.uk/beckslab
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