[R] big ps-files

[ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk]

On Wed, 5 Feb 2003, Cyril Humbert wrote:

> Helgi Tomasson wrote:
> > 
> > I have been using R for many years and I am very happy with it.  One
> > thing puzzles me.
> > Graphic postscript files tend to become quite big, much bigger than
> > corresponding splus
> > postscript files. Does anybody have a hint  to avoid this?
> >
> If you are using Unix/Linux, the command `eps2eps' (ghostscript) 
> can help to reduce the size of the eps files.

It makes my example 50% bigger!  
Its man page says

       ps2ps uses gs(1) to convert PostScript(tm) file "input.ps"
       to simpler and (usually) faster PostScript in "output.ps".

so the intention is speed not size.

Two reasons that that postscript from S-PLUS 6 is smaller are

- it is less accurate, working to the nearest point (actually bp) whereas
R works to 1/100 point.
- it makes much more use of relative move operators.


-- 
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)
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