[R] pdf creation error

David Scott d.scott at auckland.ac.nz
Wed Oct 22 00:03:29 CEST 2008


On Tue, 21 Oct 2008, Stephan Kolassa wrote:

> Hi JD,
>
> do you have the pdf open in some app, e.g., Acrobat Reader? If the file is 
> open, R can't write on it. My (German) errors in this case look like yours:
>
> Fehler in pdf(paste(pic.directory, "/full_map.pdf", sep = "")) :
>  unable to start device pdf
> Zusätzlich: Warning message:
> In pdf(paste(pic.directory, "/full_map.pdf", sep = "")) :
>  cannot open 'pdf' file argument 'Pictures/full_map.pdf'
>
> Just close the Acrobat Reader or whatever.
>
> Best,
> Stephan
>

I would advise looking into this as a source of your problems also. I am 
always getting bitten by it when using LaTex.

On Vista it is even more tricky than on XP. If you have the pdf selected 
(highlighted), Vista (with my settings at least) puts up a little preview 
of the pdf alongside the directory listing, and in doing so locks the pdf 
so you can't write to it.

Very annoying.

David Scott

>
> j daniel schrieb:
>> Hello -
>> 
>> I am trying to create a pdf file in R, but I keep getting an error that 
>> says
>> it cannot open the pdf device.  Here is the code and output:
>> 
>>> pdf(file="test.pdf")
>> Error in pdf(file = "test.pdf") : unable to start device pdf
>> In addition: Warning message:
>> In pdf(file = "test.pdf") : cannot open 'pdf' file argument 'test.pdf'
>> 
>> Until yesterday I could use the pdf() function without problems, so I am 
>> not
>> sure what happened.  The error does not go away if I restart R or restart 
>> my
>> computer.  Any ideas???
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
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>

_________________________________________________________________
David Scott	Department of Statistics, Tamaki Campus
 		The University of Auckland, PB 92019
 		Auckland 1142,    NEW ZEALAND
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 86830		Fax: +64 9 373 7000
Email:	d.scott at auckland.ac.nz

Graduate Officer, Department of Statistics
Director of Consulting, Department of Statistics


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