How to export an Excel sheet range to a picture, from within R

Question

We are trying to automate the creation of some picture files within an R Script.

We have the Excel files looking the way that we want

Answer 1

Consider having R do exactly as VBA does in your macro: making a COM interface to the Excel object library. You can do so with the RDCOMClient package, retaining nearly same code as macro in the R syntax.

library(RDCOMClient)

xlApp <- COMCreate("Excel.Application")
xlWbk <- xlApp$Workbooks()$Open("C:\\Path\\To\\test_import.xlsx")
xlScreen = 1
xlBitmap = 2

xlWbk$Worksheets("deletedFields")$Range("A8:J36")$CopyPicture(xlScreen, xlBitmap)

xlApp[['DisplayAlerts']] <- FALSE

oCht <- xlApp[['Charts']]$Add()
oCht$Paste()
oCht$Export("C:\\Temp\\SavedRange.jpg", "JPG")
oCht$Delete()

# CLOSE WORKBOOK AND APP
xlWbk$Close(FALSE)
xlApp$Quit()

# RELEASE RESOURCES
oCht <- xlWbk <- xlApp <- NULL    
rm(oCht, xlWbk, xlApp)
gc()

Output (random data/chart)