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

Hmm, not sure about posting, maybe it got redundant through Ian´s post. Its a bit more generic, but I can also remove it.

library(xlsx)

OutputPicFileName <- "Chart.jpg"
ScriptFileName <- "Chart.vbs"
xclFileName <- "test_import.xlsx"
xclRng <- "A8:J36"
file <- system.file("tests", xclFileName, package = "xlsx")
fileDirec <- unlist(strsplit(file, xclFileName))

CreateChart <- function(fileDirec, OutputPicFileName, ScriptFileName, xclRng){
  setwd(fileDirec)
  filePath <- file(paste0(fileDirec, ScriptFileName))
  writeLines(
    c(
      "Dim App, WBook, Sht, Rng, FileName, ChartObj, Chart",
       paste0("FileName = \"", gsub("/", "\\\\", fileDirec), xclFileName ,"\""),
       "Set App = CreateObject(\"Excel.Application\")",
       "Set WBook = App.WorkBooks.Open(FileName)",
       "Set Sht = App.Worksheets(1)",
       paste0("Set Rng = Sht.Range(\"", xclRng,"\")"),
       "Rng.CopyPicture",
       "Set ChartObj = App.Charts",
       "Set Chart = ChartObj.Add() ",
       "Chart.paste",
       paste0("Chart.Export \"", gsub("/", "\\\\", fileDirec) , OutputPicFileName ,"\", \"JPG\"")
    ), 
    filePath
  )
  close(filePath)
  shell.exec(ScriptFileName)
}

CreateChart(fileDirec, OutputPicFileName, ScriptFileName, xclRng)

# Result in: fileDirec