Export a graph to .eps file with R

Question

How do I export a graph to an .eps format file? I typically export my graphs to a .pdf file (using the 'pdf' function), and it works quite well. However, now I have to export to .eps files.

Barbey

You could try searching in R by typing ??eps. You would either get postscript page or at least ps.options (which would lead you to postscript). – Drawback

See also pdf2ps to convert pdf files to ps. Shell usage: $ pdf2ps plot.pdf, will create plot.ps. – Ankney

Answer 1

The easiest way I've found to create postscripts is the following, using the setEPS() command:

setEPS()
postscript("whatever.eps")
plot(rnorm(100), main="Hey Some Data")
dev.off()

Industrious

It's surprising how useful this is, and how hidden a feature it is. – Industrious

Yes, saved me a lot of screenshot :) – Charest

Thank you very much, I got to get the graph in * .eps. – Landon

Answer 2

If you are using ggplot2 to generate a figure, then a ggsave(file="name.eps") will also work.

Expansile

Ah, this is just what I needed! And you can modify size like this: ggsave("name.eps", width = 20, height = 20, units = "cm") – Recline

Answer 3

The postscript() device allows creation of EPS, but only if you change some of the default values. Read ?postscript for the details.

Here is an example:

postscript("foo.eps", horizontal = FALSE, onefile = FALSE, paper = "special")
plot(1:10)
dev.off()

Polysepalous

Thanks. I am tryin' to use it, but there is an error : graph margins too large... – Barbey

make the plot dimensions bigger: postscript("foo.eps", horizontal = FALSE, onefile = FALSE, paper = "special", height = 10, width = 10) for example. The units are in inches. The problem is that the device you are plotting to is not large enough to contain the margins of the plot region you are using. – Polysepalous

I needed the exported *.eps to work in Microsoft Powerpoint, which was not the case initially. After some trial and error I noticed I have to set additionally the parameter colormodel="rgb" of postscript(). – Capitalism

Answer 4

Another way is to use Cairographics-based SVG, PDF and PostScript Graphics Devices. This way you don't need to setEPS()

cairo_ps("image.eps")
plot(1, 10)
dev.off()

Rinderpest

This is a useful suggestion. cairo_ps differs from postscript in that it supports more unicode glyphs, but has the drawback that semi-transparency is poorly handled, and will often trigger bitmap rather than vector output. – Hardnosed

Answer 5

Yes, open a postscript() device with a filename ending in .eps, do your plot(s) and call dev.off().

Kerenkeresan