The package provides facilities to graphically export Rcmdr output to
LaTeX or HTML code.
Details
The package is designed to assist in exporting Rcmdr output
(or other objects printed in Rcmdr) to
formats other than ASCII text, and provide R novices with an easy-to-use,
easy-to-access reference on exporting R objects to formats
suitable for publication. At the moment, it is a graphical
front-end to xtable and latex
and can export various R objects to LaTeX or HTML.
In the case of LaTeX, the printed output can be used in two ways.
Taking a static approach, one
can copy the generated LaTeX code and paste directly into a LaTeX
document, or within an ERT inset of a LyX [1] document. If the code
is exported to a .tex file, one may insert it as an external
file in LyX.
A more dynamic approach consists in creating Sweave
documents, which combine LaTeX and R code. In this case,
one may copy the generated R code and paste into code chunks
in the Sweave document. Learning Sweave is considerably trivial
compared to learning R, so don't let yourself intimidated!
Although standard usage of Sweave requires knowledge of LaTeX,
one can readily use LyX to create Sweave documents [2][3],
thus avoiding the burden of (properly) learning LaTeX. For this
particular usage, the plug-in can be seen as a reference guide
for retrieving (or learning) the correct syntax to exporting objects.
Inserting the exported HTML code into conventional
word-processing programmes (MS Word, OpenOffice Writer, AbiWord, etc.)
can get trickier, but several approaches are possible.
The HTML code can, of course, be readily copied and pasted
into the source of an HTML document (for example, in
Mozilla SeaMonkey Composer). This also works for an HTML
document developed in OpenOffice Writer/Web, which subsequently
can be exported to .odt.
It is possible export the R object to an .html file.
Then, one could insert the file in an OpenOffice Writer or MS Word
document, with a resulting table that could be easily formatted.
When working with OpenOffice, MS Word, AbiWord or Gnumeric, one can also
open the .html document, then copy and paste the table into
the desired document. This approach combined with the append
argument is particularly useful when exporting many objects.
For more information concerning exporting R output please see
this page [4] by Frank Harrell.
Developing the plug-in became possible when John Fox, the author of Rcmdr,
implemented the popOutput() function. The function keeps a stack
of the last several objects printed in Rcmdr, and allows to retrieve them
following a "First In, First Out" paradigm. Thus, the last printed
object would also be the first one retrieved. This also means that objects
available for export can be displayed only one at a time; one should
reinitialise the dialogue for each subsequent object. Once the dialogue
is initialised, pressing "Cancel" removes the object from the stack.
The length of the stack
can be controlled via Rcmdr options. Please note that Rcmdr.Export
is limited to handling objects printed within Rcmdr; consequently, the
plug-in will not retrieve objects printed in the underlying R console.
On a final note, please contact me should you spot a bug, want to request
a feature or know how to work around the issues listed in LIMITATIONS.
I will also be happy to receive feedback on the present documentation.