The package ‘flextable’ (Gohel and Skintzos 2023) provides a method as_flextable() to benefit from table objects created with package ‘tables’ (Murdoch 2023).

Function tables::tabular() is a powerful tool that let users easily create simple and complex cross tables. Function as_flextable() is simple to use, it transforms ‘tables’ objects into ‘flextable’ objects and let you enrich the table with extra information and or formats.

The goal of package ‘tables’ is to compute and display complex tables of summary statistics. It is described by his author as:

The tables package provides a formula-driven interface for computing the contents of tables and formatting them. It was inspired by SAS PROC TABULATE, but is not compatible with it.

The user computes a table object by specifying a formula, with the left-hand side giving the rows, and the right-hand side giving the columns; the formula describes the summary functions to apply and how to organize them. […]

The combination of these two packages offers the possibility to create cross tabulations very easily, to stack or filter them and then to format them with flextable and to benefit from a whole range of formatting functionalities as well as the possibility to export them in the output formats supported by ‘flextable’.

tabular example

Let’s create an crosstable of aggregations based on the penguins dataset provided by package ‘palmerpenguins’ (Horst, Hill, and Gorman 2022):

library(tables)
library(palmerpenguins)

Mean <- function(x) mean(x, na.rm = TRUE)

Sd <- function(x) sd(x, na.rm = TRUE)

tab <- tabular(
  table = (species + 1) * island ~ 
    (n = 1) + Format(digits = 2) * 
      (bill_depth_mm + body_mass_g) * (Mean + Sd), 
  data = penguins)
print(tab)
#>                                                                   
#>                          bill_depth_mm         body_mass_g        
#>  species   island    n   Mean          Sd      Mean        Sd     
#>  Adelie    Biscoe     44   18.37          1.19 3709.66      487.73
#>            Dream      56   18.25          1.13 3688.39      455.15
#>            Torgersen  52   18.43          1.34 3706.37      445.11
#>  Chinstrap Biscoe      0     NaN            NA     NaN          NA
#>            Dream      68   18.42          1.14 3733.09      384.34
#>            Torgersen   0     NaN            NA     NaN          NA
#>  Gentoo    Biscoe    124   14.98          0.98 5076.02      504.12
#>            Dream       0     NaN            NA     NaN          NA
#>            Torgersen   0     NaN            NA     NaN          NA
#>  All       Biscoe    168   15.87          1.82 4716.02      782.86
#>            Dream     124   18.34          1.13 3712.90      416.64
#>            Torgersen  52   18.43          1.34 3706.37      445.11

turn it to a flextable

A simple call to as_flextable() produces a flextable quite similar to the tabular outputs:

as_flextable(tab)

species

island

bill_depth_mm

body_mass_g

n

Mean

Sd

Mean

Sd

Adelie

Biscoe

44

18.37

1.19

3709.66

487.73

Dream

56

18.25

1.13

3688.39

455.15

Torgersen

52

18.43

1.34

3706.37

445.11

Chinstrap

Biscoe

0

NaN

NA

NaN

NA

Dream

68

18.42

1.14

3733.09

384.34

Torgersen

0

NaN

NA

NaN

NA

Gentoo

Biscoe

124

14.98

0.98

5076.02

504.12

Dream

0

NaN

NA

NaN

NA

Torgersen

0

NaN

NA

NaN

NA

All

Biscoe

168

15.87

1.82

4716.02

782.86

Dream

124

18.34

1.13

3712.90

416.64

Torgersen

52

18.43

1.34

3706.37

445.11

It uses flextable default settings when possible, we recommended to define them once per session.

set_flextable_defaults(
    font.family = "Open Sans", 
    font.color = "#333333",
    digits = 2,
    big.mark = "'", 
    na_str = "", nan_str = "",
    theme_fun = theme_booktabs)

‘tables’ comes with many options that can be used to format the table. The flextable transformation preserves column types, it makes easier to post format the table with flextable syntax if needed:

as_flextable(tab) |> 
  colformat_double() |>
  theme_vanilla()

species

island

bill_depth_mm

body_mass_g

n

Mean

Sd

Mean

Sd

Adelie

Biscoe

44

18.37

1.19

3'709.66

487.73

Dream

56

18.25

1.13

3'688.39

455.15

Torgersen

52

18.43

1.34

3'706.37

445.11

Chinstrap

Biscoe

0

Dream

68

18.42

1.14

3'733.09

384.34

Torgersen

0

Gentoo

Biscoe

124

14.98

0.98

5'076.02

504.12

Dream

0

Torgersen

0

All

Biscoe

168

15.87

1.82

4'716.02

782.86

Dream

124

18.34

1.13

3'712.90

416.64

Torgersen

52

18.43

1.34

3'706.37

445.11

Use row separator

Groups’ separators can be defined as rows instead of a first column in order to reduce the width of the table:

as_flextable(tab, spread_first_col = TRUE) |> 
  colformat_double()

island

bill_depth_mm

body_mass_g

n

Mean

Sd

Mean

Sd

Adelie

Biscoe

44

18.37

1.19

3'709.66

487.73

Dream

56

18.25

1.13

3'688.39

455.15

Torgersen

52

18.43

1.34

3'706.37

445.11

Chinstrap

Biscoe

0

Dream

68

18.42

1.14

3'733.09

384.34

Torgersen

0

Gentoo

Biscoe

124

14.98

0.98

5'076.02

504.12

Dream

0

Torgersen

0

All

Biscoe

168

15.87

1.82

4'716.02

782.86

Dream

124

18.34

1.13

3'712.90

416.64

Torgersen

52

18.43

1.34

3'706.37

445.11

Enrich with flextable

Now let’s add more customizations to illustrate some other flextable features that fit well with tabular():

  • row title formatting with as_paragraph(),
  • content tabulation with prepend_chunks(as_chunk("\t")),
  • labels update with labelizor().
ft <- as_flextable(tab, spread_first_col = TRUE,
    row_title = as_paragraph(
      colorize("species: ", color = "#8f2218"),
      colorize(as_b(.row_title), color = "#8f2218")
    )) |> 
  colformat_double() |>
  align(j = 1, align = "left") |>
  prepend_chunks(i = ~ .is_row_title %in% FALSE, j = 1, as_chunk("\t")) |>
  labelizor(part = "header", labels = c(bill_depth_mm = "bill length\n(millimeters)", 
    body_mass_g = "body mass\n(grams)", island = "Island\nin Palmer\nArchipelago",
    n = "Number\nof\npenguins")) |>
  labelizor(part = "body", labels = stringr::str_to_title) |>
  autofit()
ft

Island
in Palmer
Archipelago

bill length
(millimeters)

body mass
(grams)

Number
of
penguins

Mean

Sd

Mean

Sd

Species: Adelie

 Biscoe

44

18.37

1.19

3'709.66

487.73

 Dream

56

18.25

1.13

3'688.39

455.15

 Torgersen

52

18.43

1.34

3'706.37

445.11

Species: Chinstrap

 Biscoe

0

 Dream

68

18.42

1.14

3'733.09

384.34

 Torgersen

0

Species: Gentoo

 Biscoe

124

14.98

0.98

5'076.02

504.12

 Dream

0

 Torgersen

0

Species: All

 Biscoe

168

15.87

1.82

4'716.02

782.86

 Dream

124

18.34

1.13

3'712.90

416.64

 Torgersen

52

18.43

1.34

3'706.37

445.11

Add into a document

There are simple methods to export a flextable into a document:

save_as_docx(ft, path = "flextable-tabular.docx")
save_as_rtf(ft, path = "flextable-tabular.rtf")
save_as_html(ft, path = "flextable-tabular.html")
save_as_image(ft, path = "flextable-tabular.png")
save_as_pptx(ft, path = "flextable-tabular.pptx")

files can be downloaded here:

Gohel, David, and Panagiotis Skintzos. 2023. Flextable: Functions for Tabular Reporting. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=flextable.
Horst, Allison, Alison Hill, and Kristen Gorman. 2022. Palmerpenguins: Palmer Archipelago (Antarctica) Penguin Data. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=palmerpenguins.
Murdoch, Duncan. 2023. Tables: Formula-Driven Table Generation. https://dmurdoch.github.io/tables/.

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