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rpdfshinypdf-generation

save multiple pdf pages with different sizes in Shiny R

Im developing a shiny app with several features. I added a button to download a single pdf file that contains many plots. I want to save those plots in individual pages but I want to choose the size of each pdf page. Is that possible?

This is he code that have so far:

output$exportall<-downloadHandler(
filename="Allplots.pdf",
content=function(file){
  withProgress(message = 'Exporting', min=0,max=1, { 
    pdf(file,width=8,height=11)
    print(plot1())
    print(histogram())
    print(plots2())
    print(marrangeGrob(woodsbytimepoint(), nrow=2, ncol=1))
    print(digestion())
    print(map())
    print(marrangeGrob(allplots(), nrow=4, ncol=2, top=NULL))
    
  dev.off()
  })
 }
)

The code works fine and exports all the plots that I want. However, all pages in the pdf file are 8x11. Is there a way to speciffy the size of each page? for example I want the first plot to be 7x7 and all other 8x11.

Any ideas?

Solution

  • Perhaps the simplest is to create separate PDFs (sized appropriately) and combine them with qpdf::pdf_combine.

    file <- "file.pdf"
pdf(paste0(file, ".8x11"), width=8, height=11)
plot(disp ~ mpg, data = mtcars)
gg <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(disp, mpg)) + geom_point()
print(gg)
dev.off()
pdf(paste0(file, ".7x7"), width=7, height=7)
print(gg) # or anything else
dev.off()
qpdf::pdf_combine(paste0(file, c(".8x11", ".7x7")), file)
file.remove(paste0(file, c(".8x11", ".7x7")))

    The resulting file.pdf pages:

    enter image description here

    If your sizes are not always in order (e.g., 8x11, 7x7, 8x11), you can either:

    • create three PDF files (would need an adjusted file name convention) and concatenate in order, or
    • create two PDF files (by dimensions), then also use qpdf::pdf_subset ... though since this creates new PDF files that you would then need to include in pdf_combine, it hardly seems the most efficient method.

    I cannot test this, but I think this means your code should be

    output$exportall<-downloadHandler(
filename="Allplots.pdf",
content=function(file){
  withProgress(message = 'Exporting', min=0,max=1, { 
    pdf(paste0(file, ".7x7"), width=7, height=7)
    print(plot1())
    dev.off()
    pdf(paste0(file, ".8x11"), width=8, height=11)
    print(histogram())
    print(plots2())
    print(marrangeGrob(woodsbytimepoint(), nrow=2, ncol=1))
    print(digestion())
    print(map())
    print(marrangeGrob(allplots(), nrow=4, ncol=2, top=NULL))
    dev.off()
    qpdf::pdf_combine(paste0(file, c(".7x7", ".8x11")), output=file)
  })
 }
)