Up until I started this blog, I exclusively worked in R through Linux.
(I used a combination of RStudio Cloud servers and R through a Unix server in the past.)
While working on my personal Windows machine, I noticed that the plots I made were of lower quality than my plots when using Linux.
A recent /r/rstats Reddit thread asked a similar question.
Users in the thread explained that the difference plot quality stems from Windows’ graphics engine not supporting anti-aliasing, and recommended the package Cairo to produce graphics with anti-aliasing in Windows.
x <- rnorm(100)
y <- rnorm(100)plot(x, y)
title("Default Windows Graphics")
Now, when adding the option dev='CairoPNG' to the previous chunk:
plot(x, y)
title("Using Cairo")
I find that including this option allows for nice crisp plots that match my aesthetic ideas.
