[R] Transferring R results to word prosessors

[Tom Backer Johnsen]

At 06:09 10.02.2006 -0500, Doran, Harold wrote:

>I didn't follow this thread entirely, but I did make a LaTeX 
>recommendation and I know that wasn't what you were asking for. But, if I 
>may, let me respond to the ideas you present below in an attempt to be 
>somewhat persuasive.

No, you are correct, I was not looking for a LaTex solution.  I would never 
want to try to wean my students from an office type package.  That would 
not be worth the trouble -- for me.  They should find out about these 
things by themseves.  For my own part, I am curious, and will probably have 
a look at it.

>IMHO, this are horrible inefficiencies of SPSS and other packages, not 
>virtues. To do what you are suggesting requires that one work in two 
>environments, word and SPSS. If the researcher changes their analysis or 
>wants to tweak the data, then you rerun the analysis, go back to SPSS copy 
>and paste again. Why would someone want to do this when a much more 
>efficient method exists?

Hmm.  I would think that most users handle a number of applications for 
different purposes.  I do not expect R to handle my e-mail, nor do I expect 
a spreadsheet to do text formatting.  In itself, that is not a good 
argument IMHO.  As to the trouble with cut and paste, well, I do not do 
that operation that often.  But I do want things do be simple, simply to 
avoid wasting time explaing.

>Instead, with Sweave, you embed your R code inside the LaTeX document and 
>work in a *single* environment. There is no need to copy and paste and if 
>the data or analysis changes, you update your document very easily saving 
>time, effort, and room for errors. In addition, the tables look much 
>better than word, which (again IMHO) is an aggregiously bad program to 
>begin with.

I have always liked the formatting of the documents I have recognized as 
being formatted with LaTex.  And the Sweave concept seems very 
interesting.  I have never heard of that system before, so thank you for 
mentioning it.  I will have a look at it.

>Using this method, you can place any R code in the document, including 
>graphics, tables (say with xtable) or anything. There is never a need to 
>copy and paste as there is a wonderful, seemless effort between the two 
>programs. Because LaTeX has options for presentations, one can easily 
>create slides that look much better than ppt using a similar method saving 
>hours of effort in my experience.
>
>So, instead of getting R to do what other less sophisticated programs do, 
>which is an effort backwards into the old, and inefficient, ways of doing 
>things, R is moving progressively forward and offers these similar 
>capabilities, but in a much more efficient manner.
>
>Last, if your students are doing technical work, I would suggest they 
>should be familiar with TeX anyhow. It is free, easy to use and learn, 
>offers significant advances alongside R, and equations actually look like 
>equations. BTW, creating and numbering equations in word is about the most 
>difficult effort on earth!

This is students of psychology.  Not technical work, and the number of 
formulas per 100 research reports and paper would be closer to 1 per 100 
papers than 1 per 10 papers.  They have been using Office type programs 
almost since Kindergarten.  That is a simple fact of life (for me at least).

Tom