Fail to create plot using tikzDevice

[Filipe Figueiredo]

Very recent LaTeX user, and I am trying to export one of my ggplots to LaTeX using tikz.
I manage to create the '.tex' file as recommended in all the examples I have been able to find, but once I try to execute my plot command, I get the following error message:

Measuring dimensions of: \char77
Running command: '/usr/local/bin/pdflatex' -interaction=batchmode -halt-on-error -output-directory '/var/folders/9z/rwd9dk612nq_7vv9j9vqzsj97z3jn5/T//RtmpMVHkIe/tikzDevice142fb477a068b' 'tikzStringWidthCalc.tex'
Error in getMetricsFromLatex(TeXMetrics, verbose = verbose) :
TeX was unable to calculate metrics for:

\char77

Run the following commands for diagnosis:

tikzTest()
tikzTest("\\char77")

Common reasons for failure include:

• The string contains a character which is special to LaTeX unless
  escaped properly, such as % or $.
• The string makes use of LaTeX commands provided by a package and
  the tikzDevice was not told to load the package.

The TeX and log files used for the calculation can help diagnose the
problem. If these files are missing, rerun the plot and make sure to
keep the R session open.
TeX file: tikzStringWidthCalc.tex
Log file: tikzStringWidthCalc.log](url)

After trying to run tikzTest(), I get the following result:

Active compiler:
/usr/local/bin/pdflatex
pdfTeX 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.21 (TeX Live 2020)
kpathsea version 6.3.2

Measuring dimensions of: \char77
Running command: '/usr/local/bin/pdflatex' -interaction=batchmode -halt-on-error -output-directory '/var/folders/9z/rwd9dk612nq_7vv9j9vqzsj97z3jn5/T//RtmpMVHkIe/tikzDevice142fb163405b6' 'tikzStringWidthCalc.tex'
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.21 (TeX Live 2020) (preloaded format=pdflatex)
restricted \write18 enabled.
entering extended mode

TeX was unable to calculate metrics for:

\char77

Contents of TeX file tikzStringWidthCalc.tex:

\documentclass[10pt]{article}

\usepackage{tikz}

\usepackage[active,tightpage,psfixbb]{preview}

\PreviewEnvironment{pgfpicture}

\setlength\PreviewBorder{0pt}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\usetikzlibrary{calc}

\batchmode
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[inner sep=0pt, outer sep=0pt, scale=1] (TeX) {\char77};
\path let \p1 = ($(TeX.east) - (TeX.west)$),
\n1 = {veclen(\x1,\y1)} in (TeX.east) -- (TeX.west)
node{ \typeout{tikzTeXWidth=\n1} };
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
Contents of log file tikzStringWidthCalc.log:

This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.21 (TeX Live 2020) (preloaded format=pdflatex 2020.9.15) 17 SEP 2020 13:46
entering extended mode
restricted \write18 enabled.
%&-line parsing enabled.
**tikzStringWidthCalc.tex

(/var/folders/9z/rwd9dk612nq_7vv9j9vqzsj97z3jn5/T//RtmpMVHkIe/tikzDevice142fb16
3405b6/tikzStringWidthCalc.tex
LaTeX2e <2020-02-02> patch level 5
L3 programming layer <2020-09-06> (/Users/ffi007/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/tex
/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 2019/12/20 v1.4l Standard LaTeX document class
(/Users/ffi007/Library/TinyTeX/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/size10.clo
File: size10.clo 2019/12/20 v1.4l Standard LaTeX file (size option)
)
\c@part=\count168
\c@section=\count169
\c@subsection=\count170
\c@subsubsection=\count171
\c@paragraph=\count172
\c@subparagraph=\count173
\c@figure=\count174
\c@table=\count175
\abovecaptionskip=\skip47
\belowcaptionskip=\skip48
\bibindent=\dimen134
)

! LaTeX Error: File `tikz.sty' not found.

Type X to quit or to proceed,
or enter new name. (Default extension: sty)

Enter file name:
! Emergency stop.
<read *>

l.4 ^^M

Here is how much of TeX's memory you used:
218 strings out of 482824
2883 string characters out of 5955256
238541 words of memory out of 5000000
15683 multiletter control sequences out of 15000+600000
535088 words of font info for 29 fonts, out of 8000000 for 9000
14 hyphenation exceptions out of 8191
25i,0n,25p,138b,36s stack positions out of 5000i,500n,10000p,200000b,80000s

! ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!

[rinzebloem]

I'm suffering the same issue.

[Léo Belzile]

Its hard to do anything without a MWE. Based on your log, it appears the problem is due to the lack of installation of the tikz package. Try tinytex::tlmgr_install(pkgs = "tikz")

[rinzebloem]

The below code returns the same error as @famfigueiredo specified.

library(tikzDevice)
library(tinytex)
library(filehash)
tinytex::tlmgr_install(pkgs = "tikz")
options(tikzDefaultEngine = 'pdftex')
options(tikzDocumentDeclaration = "\\documentclass[11pt]{report}")

tikz(file = "./Analysis/Figures/Imputation cross-validation/CV imputation boxplot.tex", width = 6.28, height = 4)
df <- mtcars
boxImp <- df %>% ggplot(aes(y = disp)) + geom_boxplot()
print(boxImp)
dev.off()

[Ralf Stubner]

@famfigueiredo The error you quote indicates that tikz.sty is not installed. This comes with the pgf TeX Live package. Is that installed? One way to test this is

any("pgf" == tinytex::tl_pkgs(only_installed=TRUE))

If you are using TinyTeX as TeX distribution you can use tinytex::tlmgr_install(pkgs = "pgf") to install this package.

@rinzebloem The same might apply to you. Do you also get ! LaTeX Error: File tikz.sty' not found.`?

[rinzebloem]

@rstub I was missing the file grfext.sty which I've resolved just now by running

tinytex::install_tinytex() after loading the packages in Rstudio

and

tlmgr install grfext in the Windows command prompt. Things are running smoothly now. Thanks a lot for the help!

[bridgeovertroubledhuman]

I do not have tinytex and I also have this problem (I am on a Mac).

[Ralf Stubner]

@bridgeovertroubledhuman Can you post the output of tikzDevice::tikzTest(), please?