[R] Transferring R results to word prosessors

[Gabor Grothendieck]

Given that this may very well be the most common use of the
R2HTML package I wonder if the R2HTML package developer would
be interested in providing an HTML2clip convenience wrapper
as part of the R2HTML package like this:

   HTML2clip <- function(x, file. = file("clipboard", "w"), append = FALSE, ...)
     HTML(x, file = file., append = append, ...)

so that one could just write:

   HTML2clip(summary(lm(rating ~., attitude)))

On 2/10/06, Tom Backer Johnsen <backer at psych.uib.no> wrote:
> Thank you all for very useful and interesting responses.  After reading the
> comments and after some experiments, I added the following to a text I will
> be handing out to the students (I would not mind comments):
>
> <QUOTE>The contents of the text output from R may be very sophisticated,
> but the formatting of the texts is always very simple, with absolutely no
> frills.  For instance, all formatting of columns is managed with spaces or
> blanks, no tabs, nothing extra apart from line feeds.  This means that
> transferring some types of output, like the summary of the multiple
> regression in part 7.4 directly to MS Word or any other wordprocessor would
> be far from optimal.  To make a decent table for presenting results in a
> paper in APA format, we need a "table" in the word processing sense, an
> arrangement of things in rows and columns.  With output as plain as in R, a
> lot of fiddling would be necessary after a direct copy and paste of the
> text into MS Word.  So, we need a better solution.
>
> The steps involved are really quite simple, the information is transferred
> via a speadsheet:
>
> 1. Write the output to the clipboard in HTML format (that is the same
> format as used for writing web pages)
>
> 2. When you are finished with that, paste the contents of the clipboard
> into a spreadsheet (e.g. Excel).  This automatically reformats HTML to
> something that both the spreadsheet and the word processor (e.g. MS Word)
> can handle.
>
> 3. Copy and paste what you need from the spreadsheet to the document.
>
> The last two steps are the same as when using Statistica or SPSS in a
> anyhow.  Especially SPSS has a tendency include too much formatting when
> pasting, and then Excel is a useful stepping stone to strip off the frills.
>
> The main difference is in the first step.  What we need there is to write
> the output from R to the clipboard in a format that Excel recognizes as
> something with columns and rows.  For an example, consider the "summary ()"
> output from the multiple regression in part 7.4 above.
>
> First, you have to make the library "R2HTML" available to the session:
>
>  > library (R2HTML)
>
> You only need to do this once in a session.  If this package is not
> installed, have a look at part 9 above.  Then we need to attach the data
> set and do the multiple regression:
>
>  > attach (attitude)
>  > Results <- lm (rating ~ complaints + privileges + learning)
>  > HTML (summary (Results, digits=4), file("clipboard", "w"), append=FALSE)
>  > detach (attitude)
>
> If you do this more than a few times, it might be a good idea to write a
> function as a replacement for the HTML command with a reasonable name, e.g.
> "ToClip".  The last command could then be replaced by:
>
>  > ToClip (summary (Results, digits=4))
>
> Which is much simpler.  In any case, the results are now writtten to the
> clipboard.  Open Excel, and paste the contents into a worksheet.  Select
> what you want, copy it to the clipboard, and then open your document where
> the paper is found.  Locate the place where you want the table, and paste
> the clipboard there. </QUOTE>
>
> After showing how the table looks, I mention that some details will have to
> be fixed, like conversion of the lower part of the output to text, removing
> blank rows, adding borders etc., plus rewriting the p value which is in
> scientific notation.  It is still not in an APA format, but very much
> better than it would bave been with a simple "copy and past" operation.
>
> Tom
>
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