Devices {grDevices} | R Documentation |
List of Graphical Devices
Description
The following graphics devices are currently available:
windows
:On Windows only, the graphics device for Windows (on screen, to printer and to Windows metafile).
pdf
:Write PDF graphics commands to a file.
postscript
:Writes PostScript graphics commands to a file.
xfig
:Device for XFig graphics file format. (Of historical interest only, deprecated in R 4.4.0.)
bitmap
:bitmap pseudo-device via
Ghostscript
(if available).pictex
:Writes TeX/PicTeX graphics commands to a file (of historical interest only, deprecated in R 4.4.0).
The following devices will be functional if R was compiled to use them (they exist but will return with a warning on other systems):
cairo_pdf
,cairo_ps
:PDF and PostScript devices based on cairo graphics.
svg
:SVG device based on cairo graphics
png
:PNG bitmap device
jpeg
:JPEG bitmap device
bmp
:BMP bitmap device
tiff
:TIFF bitmap device
On Unix-alikes (including macOS) only:
X11
:The graphics device for the X11 windowing system
quartz
:The graphics device for the macOS native Quartz 2d graphics system. (This is only functional on macOS where it can be used from the
R.app
GUI and from the command line: but it will display on the local screen even for a remote session.)
Details
If no device is open, calling any high-level graphics function will cause
a device to be opened. Which device is determined by
options("device")
which is initially set as the most
appropriate for each platform: a screen device for most interactive use and
pdf
(or the setting of R_DEFAULT_DEVICE)
otherwise. The exception is interactive use under Unix if no screen
device is known to be available, when pdf()
is used.
It is possible for an R package (or an R front-end such as RStudio) to provide further graphics devices and several packages on CRAN do so. These include devices outputting SVG (svglite and PGF/TiKZ (tikzDevice, TeX-based graphics, see https://pgf.sourceforge.net/).
See Also
The individual help files for further information on any of the devices listed here;
- on Windows:
- on a Unix-alike:
X11.options
,quartz.options
,
ps.options
and pdf.options
for how to
customize devices.
dev.interactive
,
dev.cur
, dev.print
,
graphics.off
, image
,
dev2bitmap
.
On Unix-alikes only:
capabilities
to see if X11
,
jpeg
, png
, tiff
,
quartz
and the cairo-based devices are available.
Examples
## Not run:
## open the default screen device on this platform if no device is
## open
if(dev.cur() == 1) dev.new()
## End(Not run)