[R] Charts to M$Word - what's the best format

Frank E Harrell Jr fharrell at virginia.edu
Mon Apr 14 16:44:40 CEST 2003


On Mon, 14 Apr 2003 15:00:58 +0100 (BST)
Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:

> On Mon, 14 Apr 2003, Thomas W Blackwell wrote:
> 
> > I think maybe the question is, how do you import postscript format
> > into an M$Word document.  I am NOT a word user, but I had to do this
> > some years ago and found that it IS possible to import postscript.
> > 
> > You do something like "import picture ... (some kind of generic-
> > sounding graphics format)", and it works fine.  The postscript
> > behaves very nicely once you get it in.  You have to play around
> > quite a bit, and try some very unlikely sounding possibilities to
> > get it in, but it WILL work.  There are definitely some shortcomings
> > in the documentation for M$Word (to put it charitably).
> 
> It just works in modern versions of Word under Windows, provided you have
> a postscript printer.  Insert | Picture | From file ... and select the
> file.  What does not work well is the preview, if the PS file has one
> (which R ones do not).
> 
> Our secretaries were doing this (with S-PLUS figures) a decade ago, and it 
> worked the same way then.
> 
> -- 
> Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk

I have never understood why more people don't use this approach.  Even without a postscript printer it is an excellent approach; you can install Adobe Acrobat Distiller and print to non-postscript printers (same with Ghostscript).
-- 
Frank E Harrell Jr              Prof. of Biostatistics & Statistics
Div. of Biostatistics & Epidem. Dept. of Health Evaluation Sciences
U. Virginia School of Medicine  http://hesweb1.med.virginia.edu/biostat



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