[Tex/LaTex] Wrap text from xtable row names with knitr

knitrwrapxtable

I am using knitr to generate pdfs that contain tables that I'm making with xtable. How can I wrap the text in these tables?

Here is my best effort so far:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}

<<example>>=
Count = structure(c("0  (0%)", "1  (9%)", "1  (9%)", "1  (9%)", "2  (18%)", "0  (0%)", "0  (0%)", "0  (0%)", "3  (27%)", "7  (63%)", "4  (36%)", "6  (54%)", "6  (54%)", "3  (27%)", "4  (36%)", "8  (72%)", "6  (54%)", "2  (18%)", "6  (54%)", "2  (18%)", "2  (18%)", "1  (9%)", "3  (27%)", "3  (27%)", "2  (18%)", "1  (9%)", "0  (0%)", "2  (18%)", "1  (9%)", "5  (45%)", "3  (27%)", "0  (0%)", "0  (0%)", "0  (0%)", "0  (0%)", "0  (0%)", "0  (0%)", "2  (18%)", "1  (9%)", "0  (0%)"), .Dim = c(8L, 5L), .Dimnames = structure(list(variable = c("Gaining access to information from scientists", "Gaining access to information from public officials/government agencies", "Understanding the scientific research", "Synthesizing complex information for a general audience", "Explaining scientific uncertainty", "Successfully pitching stories to supervisors", "Struggling for placement or prominence of stories", "Obtaining professional development/research skills"), value = c("Very Difficult", "Somewhat Difficult", "Neutral", "Somewhat Easy", "Very Easy")), .Names = c("variable", "value")), class = "table")

row.names(Count) = stringr::str_wrap(row.names(Count), width=50)
print(xtable::xtable(Count, caption='test', label='tab:example', align=c(rep('l|', ncol(Count)), 'l')))
@

\end{document}

But the string::str_wrap() does not end up affecting the rows in the table. How can I wrap this text so that the table fits on a normal size page without having to resort to using the scalebox parameter of print()?

Best Answer

Try this:

<<results='asis',echo=FALSE>>=
# row.names(Count) = stringr::str_wrap(row.names(Count), width=50)

print(xtable(Count, caption='test', label='tab:example', align=c('p{1in}',rep('|c', ncol(Count)))),scalebox = 0.75)

@

The only change made is for the parameter align. The insertion of p{1in} tells that the first column should have the width of 1 inch. Rest is self explanatory.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] knitr xtable make two tables equal width

Try using the tabularx package, see tabularx documentation for how to use align to further refine your formatting

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{colortbl, xcolor}
\usepackage{tabularx}

\begin{document}

<<do_table,echo=FALSE, results = "asis">>=
library(xtable)
mydf <- data.frame(id = 1:10, var1 = rnorm(10), var2 = runif(10))
mydf1 <- data.frame(id = 1:10, var1 = rnorm(10), var2 = runif(10),var3=rnorm(10))
print(xtable(mydf,align="XXXX"), tabular.environment = 'tabularx', width="3in")
print(xtable(mydf1,align="XXXXX"), tabular.environment = 'tabularx', width="3in")
@

\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] Dynamically format labels/columns of a LaTeX table generated in R/knitr/xtable

I think I found an acceptable solution.

Assume that the statistical table is schematically as follows:

  Short label Very long description Three letter label
1           1                     5                  9
2           2                     6                 10
3           3                     7                 11
4           4                     8                 12

LaTeX code to be generated to make every column large as the longest word of its label is:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{varwidth, calc}
\begin{document}

%% LaTeX vars
\def\colDef{} 
\newlength{\temp}

%% Column 1 
\setlength{\temp}{\widthof{\mbox{\begin{varwidth}{\textwidth}
Short\\label
\end{varwidth}}}}
\edef\colDef{\colDef p{\the\temp}}

%% Column 2 
\setlength{\temp}{\widthof{\mbox{\begin{varwidth}{\textwidth}
Very\\long\\description
\end{varwidth}}}}
\edef\colDef{\colDef p{\the\temp}}

%% Column 3 
\setlength{\temp}{\widthof{\mbox{\begin{varwidth}{\textwidth}
Three\\letter\\label
\end{varwidth}}}}
\edef\colDef{\colDef p{\the\temp}}

\edef\colDef{{\colDef}}

%% Table Macro
\newcommand{\maketab}[2]{%
\begin{tabular}{#1}
                #2
\end{tabular}
}

%% Table Body
\newcommand{\tableBody}{
Short label & Very long description & Three letter label \\ 
  \hline
  1 &   5 &   9 \\ 
    2 &   6 &  10 \\ 
    3 &   7 &  11 \\ 
    4 &   8 &  12 \\ 
   \hline
}

%% and... 
\expandafter\maketab\colDef{\tableBody}

\end{document}

Latexing one gets the intended results for labels:

Short   Very   long     Three
label   description     letter
                        label
-----------------------------
1       5               9
2       6               10
3       7               11
4       8               12
-----------------------------

The R/knitr side

As there are both the knitr and xtable tags on tex.stackexchange, I assume the R code to generate the above LaTeX might be of interest to someone.

The Rnw document to "knit" is:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{varwidth, calc}     
\begin{document}

<<label=ididit, results='asis', echo=FALSE>>=

library(xtable) 

## Generate sample 4x3 table, with long labels
## -------------------------------------------

tab=data.frame(matrix(1:12, ncol=3))
names(tab) = c("Short label", "Very long description", "Three letter label")

## Generate LaTeX code: every \ needs to be doubled (escaped) 
## -----------------------------------------------------------

## Print LaTeX vars
cat("
\\def\\colDef{} 
\\newlength{\\temp}
")

## Dynamic text
text1="\\setlength{\\temp}{\\widthof{\\mbox{\\begin{varwidth}{\\textwidth}"
      # Labels here separated by // 
text2="\\end{varwidth}}}}
\\edef\\colDef{\\colDef p{\\the\\temp}}
"

## Separate labels with \\\\
lab= strsplit(names(tab), " ")
lab= sapply(lab, function(x) paste(x, collapse='\\\\'))

## Replace dynamic text with labels and print it
text=paste(text1, lab, text2, sep="\n", collapse="\n")
cat(text)
cat("\n\\edef\\colDef{{\\colDef}}")

## Setup main table macro 
cat("
\\newcommand{\\maketab}[2]{%
\\begin{tabular}{#1}
                #2
\\end{tabular}
}
")

## Table body obtained via xtable module
cat("\\newcommand{\\tableBody}{\n")
print.xtable(xtable(tab), only.contents=T, include.rownames=F)
cat("}\n")

###  eventually... 
cat("\\expandafter\\maketab\\colDef{\\tableBody}")

@ 

\end{document}

If this document is named table.rnw, knitting it, that is, executing in R:

knitr("table.rnw")

will generate a table.tex like the LaTeX code shown in the first listing above (plus some some knitr macro embellishment for graphics) to be compiled in LaTeX in order to get the desired table output.

Comments on solution

Note that the proposed solution requires one step in R + one step in LaTeX, as the generated LaTeX contains both the code to measure lengths and to use them in the tabular environment. xtable is used only to produce the formatted list of the table inner cells, so one can easily customise the tabular environment with something fancier and/or anyway set more formatting parameters for the table.

Avoiding extra round trip from R to LaTeX means speed, anyway do suggest any path to further improve it.