[R] postscript problems (landscape orientation)

[Marc Schwartz]

On May 21, 2009, at 6:31 PM, Ted Harding wrote:

> On 21-May-09 23:02:28, David Scott wrote:
>> Well most people deal with that problem by not using Acrobat to
>> read .pdf files. On linux you can use evince or xpdf. On windows
>> just use gsview32. Those readers don't lock the .pdf.
>>
>> I am with Peter and generally go straight to pdf these days. The only
>> reason for going through postscript is if you want to use psfrag.
>>
>> David Scott
>
> Going off at a tangent to the original query, I would say that
> this is too limited a view! For one thing, PostScript (in its
> Encasulated manifestation) is readily imported and re-scalable
> by software which does not import PFF. Also, PS is an editable
> plain-text file (even though there may be chunks in hexadecimal
> for some graphics -- but it's still ASCII). One thing which I
> quite often do is edit the "%%BoundingBox: " line to improve the
> framing of the graphic -- and viewing it in ghostscript with
> "watch" mode on as one edits, one can easily adjust things to
> a satisfactory visual effect.
>
> If you know what you are doing, you can if you wish move things
> around, or add or delete things (especially bits of text) by
> using any plain-text editor on the PostScript file.
>
> Finally (though this may be a symptom of serious masochsim on
> my part), if I download a PDF in which the author has plotted
> the data, after I "print to file" in PostScript from Acrobat
> Reader I can usually obtain a very close approximation to the
> original data values by extracting the PS coordinates of the
> plotted points (and axis tick-marks) from the PostScript file.
>
> "The only reason for going through postscript is if you want
> to use psfrag" -- or psnup and/or psbook or ...



PSTricks (http://www.tug.org/PSTricks/), which I use for creating flow  
chart types of figures, such as subject disposition charts in clinical  
trials....in Sweave, I can then fill in text labels in the various  
boxes using \Sexpr with counts, etc.

Examples of use here:

   http://www.tug.org/PSTricks/main.cgi?file=examples

On OSX I find that OSX' Preview works quite well in place of Adobe  
Reader, save for certain animations in PDF files. Also, for those  
still reading this thread and are on OSX, if you are not aware, there  
are additional plugins for QuickLook for EPS files and other such  
things:

   http://www.quicklookplugins.com/

HTH,

Marc Schwartz