The tikzDevice package provides a new graphics device for R which enables
direct output of graphics in a LaTeX-friendly way. The device output
consists of files containing instructions for the TikZ graphics language and
may be imported directly into LaTeX documents using the \input{} command.

The beta version of tikzDevice is now available here:
https://r-forge.r-project.org/R/?group_id=440

An additional location for downloading source tarballs and windows binaries
is:http://github.com/Sharpie/RTikZDevice/downloads

There are many significant improvements compared to the alpha version:

Features:

- Rd documentation
- A vignette
- Proper string placement (because of string width and character metric
calculations via latex)
- Custom LaTeX headers, footers and typesetting engines
- R-Level Annotation of graphics with TikZ commands (see
http://www.texample.net for great examples of using TikZ commands)



Limitations:

- ASCII character support only
- No recognition of the R symbol font (i.e. no plotmath symbols)
- A bevy of other quirks and "personality traits" that will make themselves
known in time

The device requires a working installation of LaTeX and the TIkZ package in
order to function. This is because font metrics are currently calculated
through direct calls to the LaTeX compiler. Unfortunately, this results in
some significant computational overhead- it may take several seconds to
create a plot that contains a lot of text. In an attempt to offset this
behavior, the tikzDevice uses the filehash package to store font metrics
that it has already computed. Hopefully the more the device is used, the
faster it will be. We suggest reviewing the package vignette, especially the
section "R Options That Aﬀect Package Behavior " for more information on how
the caching process works.

We think the package is quite usable as it is, but there are surely many
bugs that we don't know about. We welcome bug reports at our R-Forge
tracker: https://r-forge.r-project.org/tracker/?group_id=440

Enjoy!

- The tikzDevice Team

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