Raster PDF graphics device (with PNG pages)

Source: R/raster_pdf.R

Open a graphics device for raster PDF files. Internally, a PNG device is used for the individual pages, which are then combined into one PDF file.

raster_pdf(
  filename = "Rplots.pdf",
  width = NULL,
  height = NULL,
  units = NULL,
  res = NULL,
  png_function = NULL,
  pdf_function = NULL,
  ...
)

agg_pdf(...)

Arguments

filename

A character string of the output file name.
width

Page width. If NULL, use value of getOption("rasterpdf.width") if set, and default to 7 otherwise.
height

Page height. If NULL, use value of getOption("rasterpdf.height") if set, and default to 7 otherwise.
units

The units in which height and weight are given. Can be "in" (inches), "cm", "mm", or "px" (pixels). If NULL, use value of getOption("rasterpdf.units") if set, and default to "in" ` otherwise.
res

Resolution in ppi. If NULL, use value of getOption("rasterpdf.res") if set, and default to 72L otherwise.
png_function

A PNG device function. If NULL, use grDevices::png().
pdf_function

A PDF device function. If NULL, use grDevices::cairo_pdf() if it is available, and grDevices::png() otherwise.
...

Further arguments passed through to the PNG device function specified in png_function.

Details

The ability to plot raster graphics in PDF files can be useful when one needs multipage documents, but the plots contain so many individual elements that use of vector graphics (with grDevices::pdf()) results in inconveniently large file sizes

Internally, the function plots each individual page in a PNG file, which are then combined into one PDF file when dev.off() is called. By default, the PNGs are generated with grDevices::png(), but another device function can also be specified. The PDF is by default generated with grDevices::cairo_pdf() if it is available, and grDevices::pdf() otherwise. Again, it is possible to specify another PDF device function.

agg_pdf(...) is shorthand for raster_pdf(..., png_function = ragg::agg_png).

See also

grDevices::pdf(), grDevices::cairo_pdf(), grDevices::png(), ragg::agg_png()

Examples

raster_pdf(tempfile(fileext = ".pdf"))
plot(iris)
dev.off()
#> pdf 
#>   2