Create PDF Report with Rmarkdown

You can create custom PDF templates for your reports without worrying about the lateX code. The template presented creates a first cover page and following pages with custom header, footer and background.

General use

Fonction prepare_for_knit will prepare everything you need in the directory of your Rmd file. You can even ask it to directly knit your pdf in the output_dir directory.

There is a template example in the package that you can prepare with the following command lines. The YAML is automatically filled with the correct options. Run these lines to see the results in PDF.

library(pdfreport)
prepare_for_knit(rmd.path = system.file("example/template_example.Rmd", package = "pdfreport"),
                 knit = TRUE, output_dir = tempdir())

Installation

Available on Github only.

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("statnmap/pdfreport")

Custom parameters

You have to fix the following parameters to customise the template with your own information.

Title page information

author <- "@StatnMap"
title <- "Title of the report"
description <- "A template for PDF reports"
company <- "ThinkR"
company_url <- "https://rtask.thinkr.fr"

Other options

link.col <- "#f67412"
section.color <- "#0099ff"
main.col <- "#192ac7"
lang <- "en" # For latex text formatting specificities, date format, ...

Background

Background are images. This is why header, footer and margins are fixed in this template.
In the package, you will find svg files that you can open with “Inkscape” to modify the templates. There is one svg file for the title page Background_Title_light.svg and one for normal pages Background_light_topdown.svg. Export your image as png and you will be able to use them as background images. You can also directly use the one provided in the package.

# Find svg image
system.file("img/Background_Title_light.svg", package = "pdfreport")
system.file("img/Background_light_topdown.svg", package = "pdfreport")

# Set Background images
bg <- system.file("img/Background_lightblue_topdown.png", package = "pdfreport")
bg.title <- system.file("img/Background_Title_lightblue.png", package = "pdfreport")

Create your own template

You need to create a Rmd file before. The function will only help you create the different LateX files and fix options in the YAML to render your PDF. Using prepare_for_knit, you will prepare everything you need (files will be copied in your Rmd folder). With option knit = TRUE, this will directly render the PDF. But you will still be able to knit your PDF manually if you have to change the content of the Rmd. In this case, try to not modify the YAML or re-run prepare_for_knit before.

# Define your own already created Rmd file
rmd.path <- system.file("example/template_example.Rmd", package = "pdfreport")
# Prepare and run options (All options are listed here)
prepare_for_knit(
  rmd.path, 
  fig_caption = TRUE, keep_tex = FALSE,
  number_sections = TRUE, toc = TRUE,
  lang = lang, out_format = c("pdf_document2", "pdf_book")[1],
  author = author, 
  title = title, description = description,
  email = email,
  slogan = slogan, created_on = created_on,
  bg = bg, bg.title = bg.title,
  link.col = link.col, section.color = section.color, main.col = main.col,
  company = company, company_url = company_url,
  knit = TRUE, output_dir = tempdir())

Extra

There are a few extra to color the text according to your options. You can use this lateX code directly in your Rmd file. Knit the template_example.Rmd file to test this.

\majorstylecolor{Text with same color as main title}
\urlstylecolor{Text with same color as url}
\sectionstylecolor{Text with same color as section title}
\keyword{To put some word in darkred}
\advert{To put some words in orange and italic}