[R-SIG-Mac] Problems with savePlot() and postscript under Snow Leopard

David Winsemius dwinsemius at mac.com
Sat Feb 13 23:59:31 CET 2010 

On Feb 13, 2010, at 5:04 PM, David Winsemius wrote:

>
> On Feb 13, 2010, at 4:08 PM, Hannes Nietnagel wrote:
>
>> Thanks David for your reply!
>>
>>
>>> species.n <- as.numeric(iris$Species)
>>> png("test.png")
>>> plot(iris, col = species.n)
>>> dev.off()
>>
>> That works fine for the png. But I still get the message:
>> postscript
>>       3
>>
>> What does it mean? Is there something wrong with my postscript?
>
> I think it is telling you which graohics device is open for plotting.
>
>> I still cannot produce a decent .eps file.
>>
>
> From a fresh R session:
>
> > ?quartz
> starting httpd help server ... done
> > ?postscript
> > species.n <- as.numeric(iris$Species)
> > png("test.png")
> > plot(iris, col = species.n)
> > dev.off()
> null device
>          1
> > postscript("test.eps")
> > plot(iris, col = species.n)
> > dev.off()
> null device
>          1
>
> I now have two files in my working directory (albeit with different  
> aspect ratios). The test.eps file can be read by Preview although it  
> needs to be converted to pdf to be displayed,  and then appears  
> perfectly normal to me. The help page for postscript() says that  
> single plots are eps by default, so I just named it to correspond to  
> htat promise. If you post the console message and describe more  
> fully what you mean by "cannot produce a decent .eps file", someone  
> might be able to comment more fully.

One the other hand, efforts to insert that file into an OpenOffice.org  
presentation file results in an error: "Unknown graohic format".  
However, adding 2 out of 3 of the recommended arguments does result in  
a file that can be inserted. I'm not sure what is wrong either with  
the three argument effort (see below) or just using the "file="  
argument approach.

 > postscript(file="test.eps",horizontal = FALSE, onefile = FALSE)
 > plot(iris, col = species.n)
 > dev.off()
null device
           1

When I try with all three arguments I get an error:

 > postscript(file="test.eps",horizontal = FALSE, onefile = FALSE,  
paper = "special")
 > plot(iris, col = species.n)
Error in plot.new() : figure margins too large





>
> -- 
> David.
>> Thank you!
>>
>> Hannes
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2010/2/13 David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net>:
>>>
>>> On Feb 13, 2010, at 2:53 PM, David Winsemius wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Feb 13, 2010, at 1:51 PM, Hannes Nietnagel wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>>
>>>>> since my problem could not be solved in the general R mailing  
>>>>> list,
>>>>> I'll post the issue again in this specific mailing list.
>>>>>
>>>>> I tried:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> iris
>>>>>> species.n <- as.numeric(Species)
>>>>
>>>> It would help if yuo access the column properly. "Species" is only
>>>> meaningful within "iris".
>>>>
>>>>>> plot(iris, col = species.n)
>>>>>> savePlot(filename="IrisTestPlot", type="png")
>>>>
>>>> If you want a png plot then open the png() device and close it  
>>>> when you
>>>> are done:
>>>>
>>>> species.n <- as.numeric(iris$Species)
>>>> png("test.png")
>>>> plot(iris, col = species.n)
>>>> dev.off()
>>>>
>>>> Produces the requested plot in the working directory and Preview  
>>>> opens it
>>>> without problem.
>>>
>>> I also got a slightly different sort of success with:
>>>
>>> plot(iris, col = species.n)
>>> quartz.save("test2.png", type="png")
>>>
>>> The background was completely transparent. I can see useful  
>>> application of
>>> that feature in creating "after-the-fact" overlays of other plots.  
>>> Reviewing
>>> the help page for ?quartz, it appears this is the expected result.  
>>> Plotting
>>> with the png() device created a white background (as would be  
>>> expected after
>>> reading its help page.)
>>>
>>> --
>>> David.
>>>>>
>>>>> and got the error message:
>>>>> Fehler in savePlot(filename = "IrisTestPlot", type = "png") :
>>>>> kann nur aus 'X11(type="*cairo")' Devices kopieren
>>>>>
>>>>> (sorry, I have a german version of R).
>>>>>
>>>>> I tried:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> postscript("IrisTestPlot.eps",
>>>>>> paper="special",height=6,width=6,onefile=FALSE,horizontal=FALSE)
>>>>>
>>>>> and
>>>>>
>>>>>> postscript(file="IrisTestPlot2.pdf", onefile = FALSE,  
>>>>>> horizontal =
>>>>>> FALSE, paper = "special", width = 8, height = 8)
>>>>>
>>>>> in both cases there are files produced that cannot be opened.  
>>>>> Error
>>>>> message: the bounding box is missing.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> According to Michael's advice I tried:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> quartz.save("IrisTestPlotquartz.png","png")
>>>>
>>>>> and got:
>>>>> postscript
>>>>>     5
>>>>>
>>>>> but no file.
>>>>>
>>>>> as well as:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> system('open IrisTestPlotquartz.png')
>>>>>
>>>>> It states that the files does not exist.
>>>>>
>>>>> And I tried:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> plot(iris)
>>>>>> dev.cur()
>>>>>
>>>>> And got the answer:
>>>>> postscript
>>>>>      3
>>>>> and again no file.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I use 64 bit R under Snow Leopard.
>>>>>
>>>>>> sessionInfo()
>>>>>
>>>>> R version 2.10.1 (2009-12-14)
>>>>> x86_64-apple-darwin9.8.0
>>>>>
>>>>> locale:
>>>>> [1] de_DE.UTF-8/de_DE.UTF-8/C/C/de_DE.UTF-8/de_DE.UTF-8
>>>>>
>>>>> attached base packages:
>>>>> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods    
>>>>> base
>>>>>
>>>>> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
>>>>> [1] tools_2.10.1
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> What could be the problem and how can I solve it?
>>>>> Thank you very much in advance for your time and advices!
>>>>>
>>>>> Hannes
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> R-SIG-Mac mailing list
>>>>> R-SIG-Mac at stat.math.ethz.ch
>>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
>>>>
>>>> David Winsemius, MD
>>>> Heritage Laboratories
>>>> West Hartford, CT
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> R-SIG-Mac mailing list
>>>> R-SIG-Mac at stat.math.ethz.ch
>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
>>>
>>> David Winsemius, MD
>>> Heritage Laboratories
>>> West Hartford, CT
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> R-SIG-Mac mailing list
>> R-SIG-Mac at stat.math.ethz.ch
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
>

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