[R] Creating publication-quality plots for use in Microsoft Word

[Thomas Lumley]

On Wed, 15 Sep 2010, dadrivr wrote:

>
> Thanks for your help, guys.  I'm looking to produce a high-quality plot (no
> jagged lines or other distortions) with a filetype that is accepted by
> Microsoft Word on a PC and that most journals will accept.  That's why I'd
> prefer to stick with JPEG, TIFF, PNG, or the like.  I'm not sure EPS would
> fly.

One simple approach, which I use when I have to create graphics for MS Office while on a non-Windows platform is to use PNG and set the resolution and file size large enough.  At 300dpi or so the physics of ink on paper does all the antialiasing you need.

Work out how big you want the graph to be, and use PNG with enough pixels to get at least 300dpi at that final size. You'll need to set the pointsize argument and it will help to set the resolution argument.

      -thomas

Thomas Lumley
Professor of Biostatistics
University of Washington, Seattle