[R] dev.print() in R for windows

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, Martin Maechler wrote:

> Both help(dev.print) and the "R for windows FAQ"
> suggest that dev.print() with no arguments
> should work also on Windows

I think you are reading dev.print() to mean no arguments, whereas it is
conventionally used to denote the function.  ?dev.print needs to say `if
properly set up: see postscript'.  Probably dev.print should default to
win.printer on Windows, but that would be both a cross-platform- and
back-compatibility change.

> [Our students have to use Windows, I don't fortunately ...]
>
>
>  > dev.print()
>  Error in PS(file, old$paper, old$family, old$encoding, old$bg, old$fg,  :
> 	 unable to start device PostScript
>  In addition: Warning message:
>  printing via file = "" is not implemented in this version
>  >
>
> One explanation of the problem is that
>     getOption("printcmd")
> is NULL and frankly I wouldn't know what to put there (Win NT 4, or Win 2k).

See ?postscript on a Windows version of R.

> Of course all this not a big problem, since at least in RGui, there's the
> print button that probably everyone uses.
> OTOH, it would be nice if  dev.print()  was portable and would work on all
> platforms (as advertized).

Well, it does if you have a print spooler set, and that applies equally
under Unix.

-- 
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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