Introduction
flextable can easily create reporting table from data.frame. You can merge cells, add header rows, add footer rows, change any format and specify how data should be displayed in cells. Tables content can also contain mixed type of content, text and images.
flextable objects can be rendered in HTML format, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and PDF.
The following table is made with function flextable and dataset data:
Species |
| Sepal |
| Petal |
| Length | Width |
| Length | Width |
setosa |
| 5.1 | 3.5 |
| 1.4 | 0.2 |
| 4.9 | 3.0 |
| 1.4 | 0.2 |
| 4.7 | 3.2 |
| 1.3 | 0.2 |
versicolor |
| 7.0 | 3.2 |
| 4.7 | 1.4 |
| 6.4 | 3.2 |
| 4.5 | 1.5 |
| 6.9 | 3.1 |
| 4.9 | 1.5 |
virginica |
| 6.3 | 3.3 |
| 6.0 | 2.5 |
| 5.8 | 2.7 |
| 5.1 | 1.9 |
| 7.1 | 3.0 |
| 5.9 | 2.1 |
| 6.3 | 2.9 |
| 5.6 | 1.8 |
Getting started
The main function is flextable.
flextable function is producing flexible tables where each cell can contain several chunks of text with their own set of formatting properties (bold, font color, etc.).
The function is using default values to format the table. It is also using a simple formatting function to create the paragraphs of text that will be rendered in each cell. All these default values can be modified after the flextable creation.
The following illustration is presenting most of the functions available to format a flextable:
Let’s have a step by step demo. First create a flextable and change header font in bold.
am | carb | gear | mpg | drat |
1 | 4 | 4 | 21.0 | 3.90 |
1 | 4 | 4 | 21.0 | 3.90 |
1 | 1 | 4 | 22.8 | 3.85 |
0 | 1 | 3 | 21.4 | 3.08 |
0 | 2 | 3 | 18.7 | 3.15 |
0 | 1 | 3 | 18.1 | 2.76 |
flextable: it is creating a flextable object based on input data. Optional argument col_keys is used to only display a subset of columns.
Functions theme_ are sugar functions whose role is to apply a set of formatting instructions to a flextable. For example, theme_vanilla set specific borders, right align paragraphs and make headers bold.
am | carb | gear | mpg | drat |
1 | 4 | 4 | 21.0 | 3.90 |
1 | 4 | 4 | 21.0 | 3.90 |
1 | 1 | 4 | 22.8 | 3.85 |
0 | 1 | 3 | 21.4 | 3.08 |
0 | 2 | 3 | 18.7 | 3.15 |
0 | 1 | 3 | 18.1 | 2.76 |
Layout
Table layout can be modified. One can add or change header/footer rows, change cells height and width and merge cells.
Also, there is an important function named autofit (it adjusts widths and heights regarding to text widths and heights).
am | # carb. | gear | mpg | drat |
1 | 4 | 4 | 21.0 | 3.90 |
4 | 21.0 | 3.90 |
1 | 4 | 22.8 | 3.85 |
0 | 3 | 21.4 | 3.08 |
2 | 3 | 18.7 | 3.15 |
1 | 3 | 18.1 | 2.76 |
To learn more, see article about layouts.
Keypoints
A flextable is an object that will produce a reporting table from a data.frame object.
A flextable is containing three parts, header, body and footer. By default, there is only one header row containing the names of the data.frame. The body part is containing data from the data.frame. The footer part is not implemented by default.
Any formatting property related to text, paragraphs, cells in the table can be modified.
A cell is made of one single paragraph of text. Paragraphs can contain several chunks of text with different formatting but also images.
The dimensions of the flextable elements, widths of columns and heights of rows, are always defined. Beeing able to define the exact size necessary to display data on a single line is a choice made to make sure HTML, pptx, docx, images have all the same rendering, for that exact widths and heights were needed. In most of cases, you should not worry about that by only using autofit() as last operation. See functions autofit() and dim_pretty().
Columns to display (col_keys) are by default all columns of the data.frame but can be choosen from a subset of existing columns and also unexisting columns. Unexisting columns are containing blanks by default but this content can be customized.
Flextable rendering
When working in RStudio, flextable will be printed in the rstudio viewer pane, the default format is HTML output.
We will use the following example:
mpg | cyl | disp | hp | drat | wt | qsec | vs | am | gear | carb |
21.0 | 6 | 160 | 110 | 3.90 | 2.620 | 16.46 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
21.0 | 6 | 160 | 110 | 3.90 | 2.875 | 17.02 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
22.8 | 4 | 108 | 93 | 3.85 | 2.320 | 18.61 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
21.4 | 6 | 258 | 110 | 3.08 | 3.215 | 19.44 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
18.7 | 8 | 360 | 175 | 3.15 | 3.440 | 17.02 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
18.1 | 6 | 225 | 105 | 2.76 | 3.460 | 20.22 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
R Markdown documents
One great feature of flextables is that it can be used in R Markdown documents; HTML, Word, PowerPoint and PDF outputs are managed with method knitr::knit_print.
Print the flextable object in the rmarkdown’s chunk as demonstrated in this document (…generated from an R Markdown document).
---
title: 'flextable formatting'
output: rmarkdown::html_document
---
> this is how to print a flextable in a R Markdown document
```{r}
library(flextable)
ft <- flextable(head(mtcars))
ft <- autofit(ft)
ft
```
pandoc versions
Supported formats require some minimum pandoc versions:
rmarkdown::html_* |
>= 1.12 |
|
rmarkdown::word_document |
>= 2.0 |
require a recent RStudio (> june 2018) |
rmarkdown::powerpoint_presentation |
>= 2.4 |
require pandoc installation |
rmarkdown::pdf_document |
>= 1.12 |
produces an image - limited support |
Notes about PDF
- Using flextable with template
pdf_document is OK if the flextable fits on one single page. The PDF output is not a real latex output but a PNG image.
- The best option to produce PDF documents containing flextable objects is by using package
pagedown. The only current known limitation is the inability to repeat header rows along pages when the table need more than a page.
Notes about rmarkdown::word_document
This note is only relevant when using flextable in an R Markdown document with Word output.
In some context, officedown::rdocx_document() will have to be used instead of rmarkdown::word_document(). This is because Word don’t store hyperlinks or images in the main document but store references. This is not managed by rmarkdown unless officedown::rdocx_document() is used.
If you don’t add images or hyperlinks in a flextable rendered by officedown::rdocx_document() then you can forget about that.
PowerPoint or Word documents with officer
Simple export
Use function save_as_docx or save_as_pptx that lets users export flextable objects to PowerPoint or Word documents..
In an interactive session
If you have a Word or PowerPoint client on your machine, you can use the print method with argument preview set to “pptx” or “docx”. It will produce and open a document where the table will be printed and ready to go to your clipboard.
With package officer
To add these objects in PowerPoint or Word documents, use functions:
ph_with() (PowerPoint)body_add_flextable() (Word)
The following is producing a PowerPoint document:
The following is producing a Word document: