[R-SIG-Mac] How to put nice R graphics into powerpoint

[Denis Chabot]

Hi,

I really like the nice vector-based pdf graphics I get in R.

However, PowerPoint seems to be unable to read them as vector graphics 
and rasterizes them, making them quite "fuzzy" and ugly. Granted, the 
problem lies with Microsoft, but in the mean time what is the best 
workaround? I'd like to do better than producing png from within R 
(especially that only my iMac has X11, my very old PowerBook does not).

I am still able to show vector graphics in pict format in PowerPoint. 
So it should be possible to extract the vectorized plot from the pdf 
and save it as pict, still vectorized.

However opening the R-produced pdf in Illustrator and saving as pict 
produces a file quite a bit bigger than the original pdf, suggesting it 
was saved as raster pict instead of vector pict. It shows up in 
Powerpoint just as ugly as if it was inserted directly as pdf. This is 
true with Illustrator CS (aka v11 I think) used either under 10.2.8 or 
10.3.7. It is also true when using GraphicConverter 5 and Preview 
(Jaguar's version, I think it is also true with the Panther version) to 
go from pdf to pict.

I fired up Canvas (old, version 8) and it did manage to save something 
that was vectorized (i.e. very sharp when viewing at 400% in 
PowerPoint) but the empty circles I used as symbols were not filled 
blacks, the dashes of dashed lines had become "wiggly", text 
orientation was unacceptably changed, etc. etc.

So does anyone know of a technique to produce vector graphics that 
insert nicely in PowerPoint, either directly from R or by converting a 
pdf produced by R into something else?

Sincerely,

Denis Chabot