[R] Redrawing !

[Prof Brian D Ripley]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2001, M. Edward Borasky wrote:

> While we're on the subject of enhancements to R's amazing graphics
> capabilities, here are two I would like:
>
> 1. Have the UNIX version produce files which are Windows-friendly. For
> example, the Windows version can produce an output file in "wmf" format,
> which I can directly import into a Word document. The UNIX version I have
> doesn't seem to do this, so I need to either convert PostScript to WMF
> somehow, or use a JPEG, which isn't editable in the Microsoft tools and
> tends to be of lower visual quality than my users will accept.

Look at the developer site:

   o  The ability to write WMF on Unix (but it looks as if we know too
      little to achieve this).

We have been unable to either documentation for WMF or any other
application that can give us a clue, so can you provide code, please?

However, Word *can* import postscript, and you can add a preview header
if you like.  EMF is editable in Word, but it tends to make a comprehensive
mess of it.

> 2. It looks to me like the Windows version can only set the size of the
> picture in a WMF file to the nearest inch. I do a lot of "two-up portrait"
> and "four-up landscape" plots. The "natural" size of two-up portrait plots
> is (8.5 minus two one-inch margins) by (11 minus two one-inch margins)/2 or
> 6.5 by 4.5. Similarly, for the four-up landscape plots, it is 4.5 by 3.25. I
> can get these sizes on my screen, but I can't seem to get them in a WMF
> file. I had to settle for 6 by 4 and 4 by 3, and for the full-page landscape
> plots I had to settle for 9 by 6.

(i) Actually R produces EMF not WMF.
(ii) There are problems with it (it is at 1/72" resolution, not the
correct 1/1200"), but most of the problems seem to be with Word.
The file dimensions are certainly not in whole inches.

Again, the source code is there, so can you supply a patch?

I keep saying `please you supply a patch', but I think people are getting
unrealistic expectations.  R is a collaborative project and the core team
has no Windows programmers.  Things like this are just not going to happen
unless contributed.  In particular, I am not prepared to spend a lot of
time looking at code I did not write to add facilities I would never use.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

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