[R] What is the best way to have "R" output tables in an MS

Frank E Harrell Jr f.harrell at Vanderbilt.Edu
Fri May 7 04:22:45 CEST 2010


On 05/06/2010 07:28 PM, (Ted Harding) wrote:
> On 06-May-10 23:44:50, Frank E Harrell Jr wrote:
>> Ted I can't resist offering my $.02, which is that I'm puzzled why
>> LaTeX, being free, flexible, and powerful, is used only by millions of
>> people and not tens of millions.
>>
>> Frank
>
> I think, Frank, that it's because when you use software like LaTex,
> unless you have a resource like Sweave (or Lyx) which does a lot
> of the hard work for you, you cannot avoid learning to use the reins
> and spurs properly to control the beast.
>
> It is the analogy of people who are happy to be helped onto a
> donkey at the seaside, and enjoy a gentle comfortable donkey-ride
> along the shore with the donkey in control (in turn led by the
> donkey-master), as opposed to those who might try mounting on a
> racehorse and seeing how they get along on their own!
>
> And there is always the reason that Certain Other Software (COS)
> is adopted as the Industry Standard (©&  ®) for editable document
> interchange. (PDF has become more prominent, and is now ackowledged
> as a production format by COS, but for most people it's not editable
> when sent to them by others; and PS has never been popular on that
> front -- attempts to open a PS document in Word usually lead to
> disaster: I've known it to be done).
>
> That said, I am totally in agreement with you! (with a $0.02 for
> my own preferences in that area, to which the same considerations
> apply).
>
> Ted.

Thanks Ted.  I wished that more people enjoyed learning for its own 
sake, and ultimately to have more command of how something works.

Frank

-- 
Frank E Harrell Jr   Professor and Chairman        School of Medicine
                      Department of Biostatistics   Vanderbilt University



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