LaTeX packages used in this package

If you are using a recent version of rmarkdown, you are recommended to load this package entirely via library(kableExtra) or require(kableExtra) because this package will load all necessary LaTeX packages, such as booktabs or multirow, for you automatically. Note that, if you are calling functions from kableExtra via kableExtra::kable_styling() or if you put library(kableExtra) in a separate R file that is sourced by the rmarkdown document, these packages won’t be loaded. Furthermore, you can suppress this auto-loading behavior by setting a global option kableExtra.latex.load_packages to be FALSE before you load kableExtra.

# Not evaluated. Illustration purpose
options(kableExtra.latex.load_packages = FALSE)
library(kableExtra)

If you are using R Sweave, beamer, R package vignette template, tufte or some customized rmarkdown templates, you can put the following meta data into the yaml section. If you are familar with LaTeX and you know what you are doing, feel free to remove unnecessary packages from the list.

header-includes:
  - \usepackage{booktabs}
  - \usepackage{longtable}
  - \usepackage{array}
  - \usepackage{multirow}
  - \usepackage{wrapfig}
  - \usepackage{float}
  - \usepackage{colortbl}
  - \usepackage{pdflscape}
  - \usepackage{tabu}
  - \usepackage{threeparttable}
  - \usepackage{threeparttablex}
  - \usepackage[normalem]{ulem}
  - \usepackage{makecell}
  - \usepackage{xcolor}

Note: kableExtra was using xcolor with the table option for alternative row color before 1.0. However, the recent updates in fancyvbr causes a clash in xcolor option. Therefore, we removed the xcolor dependency in version 1.0 and started to rely on colortbl completely.

In reality, most cases, you still need xcolor to define new colors. The tricky part is that, if you are using a older version of rmarkdown, xcolor is not included in the template while in recent version, after rmarkdown started to use the default pandoc template, xcolor is included by default. To minimize the effort, we chose to load xcolor in the end.

Plain LaTeX

Plain LaTeX table looks relatively ugly in 2017.

# Again, with kableExtra >= 0.9.0, `format = "latex"` is automatically defined
# when this package gets loaded. Otherwise, you still need to define formats
kbl(dt)

# Same: kable(dt, "latex")

LaTeX table with booktabs

Similar to Bootstrap in HTML, in LaTeX, you can also use a trick to make your table look prettier as well. The different part is that, this time you don’t need to pipe kable outputs to another function. Instead, you should call booktabs = T directly in kable().

kbl(dt, booktabs = T)

LaTeX options

Similar with bootstap_options, latex_options is also a charter vector with a bunch of options including striped, hold_position and scale_down.

kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = "striped")

kbl(mtcars[1:8, 1:4], booktabs = T, linesep = "") %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = "striped", stripe_index = c(1,2, 5:6))

kbl(dt, caption = "Demo table", booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = c("striped", "hold_position"))

kbl(cbind(dt, dt, dt), booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = c("striped", "scale_down"))

kbl(cbind(dt), booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = c("striped", "scale_down"))

long_dt <- rbind(mtcars, mtcars) 

kbl(long_dt, longtable = T, booktabs = T, caption = "Longtable") %>%
  add_header_above(c(" ", "Group 1" = 5, "Group 2" = 6)) %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = c("repeat_header"))

Full width?

If you have a small table and you want it to spread wide on the page, you can try the full_width option. Unlike scale_down, it won’t change your font size. You can use column_spec, which will be explained later, together with full_width to achieve the best result.

kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling(full_width = T) %>%
  column_spec(1, width = "8cm")

Position

Table Position only matters when the table doesn’t have full_width. You can choose to align the table to center or left side of the page. The default value of position is center.

Note that even though you can select to right align your table but the table will actually be centered. Somehow it is very difficult to right align a table in LaTeX (since it’s not very useful in the real world?). If you know how to do it, please send out an issue or PR and let me know.

kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling(position = "center")

Besides these three common options, you can also wrap text around the table using the float-left or float-right options. Note that, like striped, this feature will load another non-default LaTeX package wrapfig which requires rmarkdown 1.4.0 +. If you rmarkdown version < 1.4.0, you need to load the package through a customed LaTeX template file.

kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling(position = "float_right")

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Cras sit amet mauris in ex ultricies elementum vel rutrum dolor. Phasellus tempor convallis dui, in hendrerit mauris placerat scelerisque. Maecenas a accumsan enim, a maximus velit. Pellentesque in risus eget est faucibus convallis nec at nulla. Phasellus nec lacinia justo. Morbi fermentum, orci id varius accumsan, nibh neque porttitor ipsum, consectetur luctus risus arcu ac ex. Aenean a luctus augue. Suspendisse et auctor nisl. Suspendisse cursus ultrices quam non vulputate. Phasellus et pharetra neque, vel feugiat erat. Sed feugiat elit at mauris commodo consequat. Sed congue lectus id mattis hendrerit. Mauris turpis nisl, congue eget velit sed, imperdiet convallis magna. Nam accumsan urna risus, non feugiat odio vehicula eget.

Font Size

If one of your tables is huge and you want to use a smaller font size for that specific table, you can use the font_size option.

kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling(font_size = 7)

Column spec

When you have a table with lots of explanatory texts, you may want to specify the column width for different column, since the auto adjust in HTML may not work in its best way while basic LaTeX table is really bad at handling text wrapping. Also, sometimes, you may want to highlight a column (e.g., a “Total” column) by making it bold. In these scenarios, you can use column_spec(). You can find an example below.

text_tbl <- data.frame(
  Items = c("Item 1", "Item 2", "Item 3"),
  Features = c(
    "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Proin vehicula tempor ex. Morbi malesuada sagittis turpis, at venenatis nisl luctus a. ",
    "In eu urna at magna luctus rhoncus quis in nisl. Fusce in velit varius, posuere risus et, cursus augue. Duis eleifend aliquam ante, a aliquet ex tincidunt in. ", 
    "Vivamus venenatis egestas eros ut tempus. Vivamus id est nisi. Aliquam molestie erat et sollicitudin venenatis. In ac lacus at velit scelerisque mattis. "
  )
)

kbl(text_tbl, booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling(full_width = F) %>%
  column_spec(1, bold = T, color = "red") %>%
  column_spec(2, width = "30em")

Key Update: I understand the need of doing conditional formatting and the previous solution cell_spec is relatively hard to use. Therefore in kableExtra 1.2, I improved the functionality of column_spec so it can take vectorized input for most of its arguments (except width, border_left and border_right). It is really easy right now to format a column based on other values.

that_cell <- c(rep(F, 7), T)
mtcars[1:8, 1:8] %>%
  kbl(booktabs = T, linesep = "") %>%
  kable_paper(full_width = F) %>%
  column_spec(2, color = spec_color(mtcars$mpg[1:8]),
              link = "https://haozhu233.github.io/kableExtra") %>%
  column_spec(6, color = "white", 
              background = spec_color(mtcars$drat[1:8], end = 0.7),
              popover = paste("am:", mtcars$am[1:8])) %>%
  column_spec(9, strikeout = that_cell, bold = that_cell,
              color = c(rep("black", 7), "red"))

You can still use the spec_*** helper functions to help you define color. See the documentation below.

Insert Images into Columns

Technically, we are still talking about column_spec here. However, since this topic itself contains its own subtopics, we split it out as a separate section. Since kableExtra 1.2, we introduced the feature of adding images to columns of tables. Here is a quick example.

tbl_img <- data.frame(
  name = c("kableExtra 1", "kableExtra 2"),
  logo = ""
)
tbl_img %>%
  kbl(booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_paper(full_width = F) %>%
  column_spec(2, image = "kableExtra_sm.png")

name	logo
kableExtra 1
kableExtra 2

If you need to specify the size of the images, you need to do it through spec_image.

tbl_img %>%
  kbl(booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_paper(full_width = F) %>%
  column_spec(2, image = spec_image(
    c("kableExtra_sm.png", "kableExtra_sm.png"), 50, 50))

name	logo
kableExtra 1
kableExtra 2

kableExtra also provides a few inline plotting tools. Right now, there are spec_hist, spec_boxplot, and spec_plot. One key feature is that by default, the limits of every subplots are fixed so you can compare across rows.

mpg_list <- split(mtcars$mpg, mtcars$cyl)
disp_list <- split(mtcars$disp, mtcars$cyl)
inline_plot <- data.frame(cyl = c(4, 6, 8), mpg_box = "", mpg_hist = "",
                          mpg_line1 = "", mpg_line2 = "",
                          mpg_points1 = "", mpg_points2 = "", mpg_poly = "")
inline_plot %>%
  kbl(booktabs = TRUE) %>%
  kable_paper(full_width = FALSE) %>%
  column_spec(2, image = spec_boxplot(mpg_list)) %>%
  column_spec(3, image = spec_hist(mpg_list)) %>%
  column_spec(4, image = spec_plot(mpg_list, same_lim = TRUE)) %>%
  column_spec(5, image = spec_plot(mpg_list, same_lim = FALSE)) %>%
  column_spec(6, image = spec_plot(mpg_list, type = "p")) %>%
  column_spec(7, image = spec_plot(mpg_list, disp_list, type = "p")) %>%
  column_spec(8, image = spec_plot(mpg_list, polymin = 5))

There is also a spec_pointrange function specifically designed for forest plots in regression tables. Of course, feel free to use it for other purposes.

coef_table <- data.frame(
  Variables = c("var 1", "var 2", "var 3"),
  Coefficients = c(1.6, 0.2, -2.0),
  Conf.Lower = c(1.3, -0.4, -2.5),
  Conf.Higher = c(1.9, 0.6, -1.4)
) 

data.frame(
  Variable = coef_table$Variables,
  Visualization = ""
) %>%
  kbl(booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_classic(full_width = FALSE) %>%
  column_spec(2, image = spec_pointrange(
    x = coef_table$Coefficients, 
    xmin = coef_table$Conf.Lower, 
    xmax = coef_table$Conf.Higher, 
    vline = 0)
    )

Row spec

Similar with column_spec, you can define specifications for rows. Currently, you can either bold or italicize an entire row. Note that, similar to other row-related functions in kableExtra, for the position of the target row, you don’t need to count in header rows or the group labeling rows.

kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling("striped", full_width = F) %>%
  column_spec(7, border_left = T, bold = T) %>%
  row_spec(1, strikeout = T) %>%
  row_spec(3:5, bold = T, color = "white", background = "black")

Header Rows

One special case of row_spec is that you can specify the format of the header row via row_spec(row = 0, ...).

kbl(dt, booktabs = T, align = "c") %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = "striped", full_width = F) %>%
  row_spec(0, angle = 45)

Conditional logic

It is very easy to use cell_spec with conditional logic. Here is an example.

cs_dt <- mtcars[1:10, 1:2]
cs_dt$car = row.names(cs_dt)
row.names(cs_dt) <- NULL
cs_dt$mpg = cell_spec(cs_dt$mpg, color = ifelse(cs_dt$mpg > 20, "red", "blue"))
cs_dt$cyl = cell_spec(
  cs_dt$cyl, color = "white", align = "c", angle = 45, 
  background = factor(cs_dt$cyl, c(4, 6, 8), c("#666666", "#999999", "#BBBBBB")))
cs_dt <- cs_dt[c("car", "mpg", "cyl")]

kbl(cs_dt, booktabs = T, escape = F) %>%
  kable_paper("striped", full_width = F)

# You can also do this with dplyr and use one pipe from top to bottom
# mtcars[1:10, 1:2] %>%
#   mutate(
#     car = row.names(.),
#     mpg = cell_spec(mpg, "html", color = ifelse(mpg > 20, "red", "blue")),
#     cyl = cell_spec(cyl, "html", color = "white", align = "c", angle = 45, 
#                     background = factor(cyl, c(4, 6, 8), 
#                                         c("#666666", "#999999", "#BBBBBB")))
#   ) %>%
#   select(car, mpg, cyl) %>%
#   kbl(format = "html", escape = F) %>%
#   kable_styling("striped", full_width = F)

Visualize data with Viridis Color

This package also comes with a few helper functions, including spec_color, spec_font_size & spec_angle. These functions can rescale continuous variables to certain scales. For example, function spec_color would map a continuous variable to any viridis color palettes. It offers a very visually impactful representation in a tabular format.

vs_dt <- iris[1:10, ]
vs_dt[1:4] <- lapply(vs_dt[1:4], function(x) {
    cell_spec(x, bold = T, 
              color = spec_color(x, end = 0.9),
              font_size = spec_font_size(x))
})
vs_dt[5] <- cell_spec(vs_dt[[5]], color = "white", bold = T,
    background = spec_color(1:10, end = 0.9, option = "A", direction = -1))
kbl(vs_dt, booktabs = T, escape = F, align = "c") %>%
  kable_classic("striped", full_width = F)

# Or dplyr ver
# iris[1:10, ] %>%
#   mutate_if(is.numeric, function(x) {
#     cell_spec(x, bold = T, 
#               color = spec_color(x, end = 0.9),
#               font_size = spec_font_size(x))
#   }) %>%
#   mutate(Species = cell_spec(
#     Species, color = "white", bold = T,
#     background = spec_color(1:10, end = 0.9, option = "A", direction = -1)
#   )) %>%
#   kable(escape = F, align = "c") %>%
#   kable_styling(c("striped", "condensed"), full_width = F)

Text Specification

If you check the results of cell_spec, you will find that this function does nothing more than wrapping the text with appropriate HTML/LaTeX formatting syntax. The result of this function is just a vector of character strings. As a result, when you are writing a rmarkdown document or write some text in shiny apps, if you need extra markups other than bold or italic, you may use this function to color, change font size or rotate your text.

An aliased function text_spec is also provided for a more literal writing experience. The only difference is that in LaTeX, unless you specify latex_background_in_cell = FALSE (default is TRUE) in cell_spec, it will define cell background color as \cellcolor{}, which doesn’t work outside of a table, while for text_spec, the default value for latex_background_in_cell is FALSE.

sometext <- strsplit(paste0(
  "You can even try to make some crazy things like this paragraph. ", 
  "It may seem like a useless feature right now but it's so cool ",
  "and nobody can resist. ;)"
), " ")[[1]]
text_formatted <- paste(
  text_spec(sometext, color = spec_color(1:length(sometext), end = 0.9),
            font_size = spec_font_size(1:length(sometext), begin = 5, end = 20)),
  collapse = " ")

# To display the text, type `r text_formatted` outside of the chunk

You can even try to make some crazy things like this paragraph. It may seem like a useless feature right now but it’s so cool and nobody can resist. ;)

Add header rows to group columns

Tables with multi-row headers can be very useful to demonstrate grouped data. To do that, you can pipe your kable object into add_header_above(). The header variable is supposed to be a named character with the names as new column names and values as column span. For your convenience, if column span equals to 1, you can ignore the =1 part so the function below can be written as `add_header_above(c(” “,”Group 1” = 2, “Group 2” = 2, “Group 3” = 2)).

kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling() %>%
  add_header_above(c(" " = 1, "Group 1" = 2, "Group 2" = 2, "Group 3" = 2))

In fact, if you want to add another row of header on top, please feel free to do so. Also, since kableExtra 0.3.0, you can specify bold & italic as you do in row_spec().

kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = "striped") %>%
  add_header_above(c(" ", "Group 1" = 2, "Group 2" = 2, "Group 3" = 2)) %>%
  add_header_above(c(" ", "Group 4" = 4, "Group 5" = 2)) %>%
  add_header_above(c(" ", "Group 6" = 6), bold = T, italic = T)

Group rows via labeling

Sometimes we want a few rows of the table being grouped together. They might be items under the same topic (e.g., animals in one species) or just different data groups for a categorical variable (e.g., age < 40, age > 40). With the function pack_rows/group_rows() in kableExtra, this kind of task can be completed in one line. Please see the example below. Note that when you count for the start/end rows of the group, you don’t need to count for the header rows nor other group label rows. You only need to think about the row numbers in the “original R dataframe”.

kbl(mtcars[1:10, 1:6], caption = "Group Rows", booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling() %>%
  pack_rows("Group 1", 4, 7) %>%
  pack_rows("Group 2", 8, 10)

In case some users need it, you can define your own gapping spaces between the group labeling row and previous rows. The default value is 0.5em.

kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  pack_rows("Group 1", 4, 5, latex_gap_space = "2em")

If you prefer to build multiple groups in one step, you can use the short-hand index option. Basically, you can use it in the same way as you use add_header_above. However, since group_row only support one layer of grouping, you can’t add multiple layers of grouping header as you can do in add_header_above.

kbl(mtcars[1:10, 1:6], caption = "Group Rows", booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling() %>%
  pack_rows(index=c(" " = 3, "Group 1" = 4, "Group 2" = 3))
# Not evaluated. The code above should have the same result as the first example in this section.

Note that kable has a relatively special feature to handle align and it may bring troubles to you if you are not using it correctly. In the documentation of the align argument of kable, it says:

If length(align) == 1L, the string will be expanded to a vector of individual letters, e.g. 'clc' becomes c('c', 'l', 'c'), unless the output format is LaTeX.

For example,

kbl(mtcars[1:2, 1:2], align = c("cl"))
# \begin{tabular}{l|cl|cl}  # Note the column alignment here
# \hline
#   & mpg & cyl\\
# ...

LaTeX, somehow shows surprisingly high tolerance on that, which is quite unusual. As a result, it won’t throw an error if you are just using kable to make some simple tables. However, when you use kableExtra to make some advanced modification, it will start to throw some bugs. As a result, please try to form a habit of using a vector in the align argument for kable (tip: you can use rep function to replicate elements. For example, c("c", rep("l", 10))).

Row indentation

Unlike pack_rows(), which will insert a labeling row, sometimes we want to list a few sub groups under a total one. In that case, add_indent() is probably more appropriate.

kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  add_indent(c(1, 3, 5))

You can also specify the width of the indentation by the level_of_indent option. At the same time, if you want to indent every column, you can choose to turn on all_cols. Note that if a column is right aligned, you probably won’t be able to see the effect.

kbl(dt, booktabs = T, align = "l") %>%
  add_indent(c(1, 3, 5), level_of_indent = 2, all_cols = T)

Group rows via multi-row cell

Function pack_rows is great for showing simple structural information on rows but sometimes people may need to show structural information with multiple layers. When it happens, you may consider using collapse_rows instead, which will put repeating cells in columns into multi-row cells.

In LaTeX, collapse_rows adds some extra hlines to help differentiate groups. You can customize this behavior using the latex_hline argument. You can choose from full (default), major and none.

Vertical alignment of cells (with the default row_group_label_position = "identity")) is controlled by the valign option. You can choose from “top”, “middle” (default) and “bottom”. Be cautious that the vertical alignment option was only introduced in multirow in 2016. If you are using a legacy LaTeX distribution, you will run into trouble if you set valign to be either “top” or “bottom”. Alternatively, use row_group_label_position = "first", which will put the row group labels into the first row without using the \multirow LaTeX command at all.

collapse_rows_dt <- data.frame(C1 = c(rep("a", 10), rep("b", 5)),
                 C2 = c(rep("c", 7), rep("d", 3), rep("c", 2), rep("d", 3)),
                 C3 = 1:15,
                 C4 = sample(c(0,1), 15, replace = TRUE))
kbl(collapse_rows_dt, booktabs = T, align = "c") %>%
  column_spec(1, bold=T) %>%
  collapse_rows(columns = 1:2, latex_hline = "major", row_group_label_position = "first")

Right now, you can’t automatically make striped rows based on collapsed rows but you can do it manually via the extra_latex_after option in row_spec. This feature is not officially supported. I’m only document it here if you want to give it a try.

kbl(collapse_rows_dt[-1], align = "c", booktabs = T) %>%
  column_spec(1, bold = T, width = "5em") %>%
  row_spec(c(1:7, 11:12) - 1, extra_latex_after = "\\rowcolor{gray!6}") %>%
  collapse_rows(1, latex_hline = "none")

When there are too many layers, sometimes the table can become too wide. You can choose to stack the first few layers by setting row_group_label_position to stack.

collapse_rows_dt <- expand.grid(
  District = sprintf('District %s', c('1', '2')),
  City = sprintf('City %s', c('1', '2')),
  State = sprintf('State %s', c('a', 'b')),
  Country = sprintf('Country with a long name %s', c('A', 'B'))
) 
collapse_rows_dt <- collapse_rows_dt[c("Country", "State", "City", "District")]
collapse_rows_dt$C1 = rnorm(nrow(collapse_rows_dt))
collapse_rows_dt$C2 = rnorm(nrow(collapse_rows_dt))

kbl(collapse_rows_dt, 
      booktabs = T, align = "c", linesep = '') %>%
  collapse_rows(1:3, row_group_label_position = 'stack') 

To better distinguish different layers, you can format the each layer using row_group_label_fonts. You can also customize the hlines to better differentiate groups.

row_group_label_fonts <- list(
  list(bold = T, italic = T), 
  list(bold = F, italic = F)
  )
kbl(collapse_rows_dt, 
                     booktabs = T, align = "c", linesep = '') %>%
  column_spec(1, bold=T) %>%
  collapse_rows(1:3, latex_hline = 'custom', custom_latex_hline = 1:3, 
                row_group_label_position = 'stack', 
                row_group_label_fonts = row_group_label_fonts) 

Linebreak processor

Unlike in HTML, where you can use <br> at any time, in LaTeX, it’s actually quite difficult to make a linebreak in a table. Therefore I created the linebreak function to facilitate this process. Please see the Best Practice for Newline in LaTeX Table for details.

dt_lb <- data.frame(
  Item = c("Hello\nWorld", "This\nis a cat"), 
  Value = c(10, 100)
)
dt_lb$Item = linebreak(dt_lb$Item)

# Or you can use
# dt_lb <- dt_lb %>%
#   mutate_all(linebreak)

dt_lb %>%
  kbl(booktabs = T, escape = F,
      col.names = linebreak(c("Item\n(Name)", "Value\n(Number)"), align = "c"))

At the same time, since kableExtra 0.8.0, all kableExtra functions that have some contents input (such as footnote or pack_rows) will automatically convert \n to linebreaks for you in both LaTeX and HTML.

Table on a Landscape Page

Sometimes when we have a wide table, we want it to sit on a designated landscape page. The new function landscape() can help you on that. Unlike other functions, this little function only serves LaTeX and doesn’t have a HTML side.

kbl(dt, caption = "Demo Table (Landscape)[note]", booktabs = T) %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = c("hold_position")) %>%
  add_header_above(c(" ", "Group 1[note]" = 3, "Group 2[note]" = 3)) %>%
  add_footnote(c("This table is from mtcars", 
                 "Group 1 contains mpg, cyl and disp", 
                 "Group 2 contains hp, drat and wt"), 
               notation = "symbol") %>%
  pack_rows("Group 1", 4, 5) %>%
  landscape()

Decimal Alignment

Decimal alignment has been a requested feature by many LaTeX users. However, since the syntax for either siunitx or dcolumn are a little different, it is sort of difficult to integrate them into the pipeline of this package without breaking other features. If you need this feature, Brandon Bertelsen (@1beb) provided a very nice solution on github (https://github.com/haozhu233/kableExtra/issues/174, thanks). Here is a working example.

In the header-includes section of the yaml header, include the following settings. If you need different rounding options, you can make changes here.

\usepackage{siunitx}
\newcolumntype{d}{S[table-format=3.2]}

For your table, you need to modify the column names and use d to as the align options.

# not evaluated
k <- mtcars[1:10,1:5]
names(k) <- paste("{", names(k), "}")
kableExtra::kable(
     k, "latex", booktabs = TRUE, longtable = TRUE,  
     align = c("l", rep("d", 4)), linesep = "", escape = FALSE) %>% 
  kable_styling(full_width=FALSE)

Use LaTeX table in HTML or Word

If you want to save a LaTeX table to a image, you may consider using save_kable(). We also provide an as_image() function as a convenience wrapper for save_kable(). It will save the image to a temp location. Note that this feature requires you to have magick installed (install.packages("magick")). Also, if you are planning to use it on Windows, you need to install Ghostscript. This feature may not work if you are using tinytex. If you are using tinytex, please consider using other alternatives to this function.

# Not evaluated. 

# The code below will automatically include the image in the rmarkdown document
kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  column_spec(1, bold = T) %>%
  as_image()

# If you want to save the image locally, just provide a name
kbl(dt, booktabs = T) %>%
  column_spec(1, bold = T) %>%
  save_kable("my_latex_table.png")

tables

The latest version of tables comes with a toKable() function, which is compatiable with functions in kableExtra (>=0.9.0).

xtable

For xtable users, if you want to use kableExtra functions on that, check out this xtable2kable() function shipped with kableExtra 1.0. I personally have been using this function to place table caption below tables and solve some tricky case when I use tufte_handout.

# Not evaluating
xtable::xtable(mtcars[1:4, 1:4], caption = "Hello xtable") %>%
  xtable2kable() %>%
  column_spec(1, color = "red")