[R] Shrink file size of pdf graphics

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 19/05/2011 11:14 AM, 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?


There are several possibilities.  You can use a bitmapped device (e.g. 
png()) to save the image; pdflatex can include those.

You can compress the .pdf file using an external tool like pdftk (or do 
it internally in R 2.14.x, coming soon).

There are probably others...

Duncan Murdoch