[R] How to include static PDFs vignettes in an R package

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 20/05/2014, 2:51 AM, Luca Scrucca wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> prior to R version 3.0 I used to include a static PDF file as package vignette following the instructions in http://www.icesi.edu.co/CRAN/web/packages/R.rsp/vignettes/NonSweaveVignettes.pdf (I know this is a little bit old), except that the relevant files where in vignette/ directory of the package and not on inst/doc/.
> This was recognized by the R build system, so the vignette appeared when calling browseVignettes() as well as in the 'Overview of user guides and package vignettes' section of the package HTML help page. However, this doesn't work anymore, and I have tried many different ways but with no success.
> Did someone find another solution to include static PDF files as vignettes in R packages?
> Thanks in advance.

You need to include the source, otherwise R doesn't consider it to be a 
vignette.

If this package is for your own use (not for CRAN), the "source" could 
simply be an instruction to copy the .pdf from somewhere -- see the 
current non-Sweave vignettes section of Writing R Extensions for how to 
set this up.  I don't think that would be acceptable on CRAN under their 
open source policy.

Duncan Murdoch