Copy plot from another device to RStudio

Question

Copy plot from another device to RStudio

I am trying to change my workflow to simultaneously display and save my graphs in R.

So far, following the advice on two other issues ( 1 , 2 ), I have done the following:

Clear all devices: graphics.off(); dev.new()
Create an instance of the device for my desired file type (most commonly used pdf) pdf("file.pdf").
Return to RStudio: dev.set(which = dev.list()["RStudioGD"])
Build Functions. plot(1:10, 1:10)etc.
Copy to device: dev.copy(which = dev.list()["pdf"])
Close device: dev.off(which = dev.list()["pdf"])

This works fine for some time, but I noticed a problem: sometimes the settings of my graph window in RStudio are all narrowed, and this, in turn, is passed to my file. In particular, I always shorten / stretch a part of the RStudio workspace graph window to make my code / console more or less dominant (for example, to the point where it par("pin")returns (11.27, .157).

To get around this, I tried to switch the order of operations, first write to the device, and then copy it to RStudio (i.e., switch steps 3 and 4, and then copy to RStudioGDinstead of the external device).

However, although the file was written as expected, nothing is displayed in RStudio, and no warnings are generated:

graphics.off(); dev.new()
pdf("womp.pdf")
plot(1:10, 1:10)

dev.copy(which = dev.list()["RStudioGD"]) #apparently does nothing!!
invisible(dev.off(which = dev.list()["pdf"]))