[R] r under linux: creating high quality bmp's for win users

[Jan T. Kim]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2005 at 11:59:25AM +0100, Christoph Lehmann wrote:

> I produce graphics with R under linux, but my collaborators often use 
> windows and cannot import eps pics e.g. in msword
> 
> what is the standard way to get e.g. bmp's with the same quality as eps. 
>  going the way: creating eps, convert eps2bmp using 'convert' doesn't 
> yield good enough bmp's
> 
> thanks for a short hint

The too short version: You can't get bmps of the same quality as encapsulated
postscript because bmp is a raster format and postscript is a language that
implements vector graphics.

The somewhat more useful (hopefully) version: You can always use gs to
produce a fixed resolution raster snapshot of your EPS file, e.g.

    gs -r600x600 -sDEVICE=bmp16m -sOutputFile=x.bmp -dNOPAUSE x.eps -c quit

This allows you to control the resolution (-r option) and should allow
you to produce any "quality" that may practically suffice, although this
is a kludge.

Best regards, Jan

P.S.: I believe that the convert program just acts as a wrapper to gs
anyway, with a resolution that is chosen to be useful for screen graphics
rather than for printing.

P.P.S.: I'll never understand why Word & Co. don't support encapsulated
postscript. With all that OLE and whatever, it can't be impossible to
do as LaTeX / xdvi does...?
-- 
 +- Jan T. Kim -------------------------------------------------------+
 |    *NEW*    email: jtk at cmp.uea.ac.uk                               |
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