[R] Shrink file size of pdf graphics

[Prof Brian Ripley]

This was answered on this list a few days ago.  See

https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2011-May/278029.html

On Thu, 19 May 2011, Layman123 wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> My data consists of a system of nearly 75000 roads, available as a
> shapefile. When I plot the road system, by adding the individual roads with
> 'lines' and store it as a pdf-file with 'pdf' I get a file of size 13 MB.
> This is way too large to add it in my LaTeX-document, because there will be
> some more graphics of this type.
> Now I'm curious to learn wheter there is a possibility in R to shrink the
> file size of this graphic? I merely need it in a resolution so that it looks
> "smooth" when printed out. I don't know much about the storage of R
> graphics, but maybe there is a way to change the way the file is stored
> perhaps as a pixel image?

Of course!  What does ?Devices show on your unstated system and 
unstated R version?  Most likely it will contain something like

         • ‘png’ PNG bitmap device

         • ‘jpeg’ JPEG bitmap device

         • ‘bmp’ BMP bitmap device

         • ‘tiff’ TIFF bitmap device

         • ‘bitmap’ bitmap pseudo-device via ‘Ghostscript’ (if
           available).

> Thank you very much in advance! Any tips are appreciated much!

Tip: follow the footer of this message and do your homework before 
posting.


> Regards
> Roman
>
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-- 
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)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595