[R] ISO recommendations for plot output format from R to MS Word

[Robert Dodier]

Hi, a quick follow-up about the question about putting R-generated
figures into MS Word.

I have found by experimenting with some figures and documents that if
I import an SVG figure generated by svglite (didn't try other output
functions), I can view it okay in my installation of MS Word (Word for
Mac 16.16.10), and it looks okay in MS Word for Windows (circa 2016 or
2018) on a laptop I have, and two other people can view it okay (one
on Mac and one on Windows). So that seems safe enough to go ahead.
YMMV.

I am informed that MS Word is actually storing a bitmap image of the
SVG figure, which is displayed by non-SVG-aware versions of Word. So
that seems like a good safeguard.

For the record, I converted the SVG to EPS, PNG, PDF, WMF, and EMF via
Imagemagick. EPS and PNG were tolerable, PDF was too fuzzy, and WMF
and EMF, at least as generated, could not be displayed (I was a little
surprised by that). There are, no doubt, many unanswered questions
here, which unfortunately I cannot take the time to explore right now.

In summary I found that importing SVG generated by svglite into MS
Word for Mac seems to work okay to generate a generally-readable file.
Perhaps this experience is useful in some way to others.

best,

Robert Dodier