This chapter shows a few simple examples of including tables and getting cross-referencing to work across formats (HTML, Word, PDF). See Chapter 6 for more examples and comparisons of different table outputs.

In this chapter, I am going to use {flextable} for Word and HTML and {kabelExtra} for PDF. See Chapter 6 for a comparison of {flextable}, {kableExtra} and {gt}. There is a current problem that Quarto is not processing the cross-references with {flextable} into PDF and Word. But this is a known problem and they are working on it. {flextable} is the only table package that I have found the tends to work as expected across platforms. The {officer} package uses it so it works well with Word and works well with LaTeX.

*Note, I am using some customized functions to be able have a uniform look for my tables. These are in tables/_common.R.

4.1 Example table

This is an example a table. We can reference Table 4.1 (note this is broken in Word output) easily and it is auto-numbered.

Table 4.1: This is a simple table.
mpg cyl disp hp drat wt
Mazda RX4 21.0 6 160.0 110 3.90 2.620
Mazda RX4 Wag 21.0 6 160.0 110 3.90 2.875
Datsun 710 22.8 4 108.0 93 3.85 2.320
Hornet 4 Drive 21.4 6 258.0 110 3.08 3.215
Hornet Sportabout 18.7 8 360.0 175 3.15 3.440
Valiant 18.1 6 225.0 105 2.76 3.460
Duster 360 14.3 8 360.0 245 3.21 3.570
Merc 240D 24.4 4 146.7 62 3.69 3.190
Merc 230 22.8 4 140.8 95 3.92 3.150
Merc 280 19.2 6 167.6 123 3.92 3.440
Note:
kable

4.2 Including table files

It is often good to have your files in separate files so that when you edit your tables, you only have to work on the table code.

```{r child=here::here("tables", "Table_flex.Rmd")}
```
Table 4.2:

This table is created in Table_flex.Rmd. flextable.

Df

Deviance

Resid. Df

Resid. Dev

NULL

99

129.5

ethnicty

3

47.2

96

82.2

grade

1

1.7

95

80.5

ethnicty:grade

3

7.2

92

73.3

We can add a captions to a flextable with set_caption but then we won’t have access to Quarto’s cross-format (Word, HTML, PDF) cross-referencing engine. We can also use tab.cap="caption" in the chunk yaml but again we don’t get the cross-referencing engine.

Code 
set_caption(ft, 
  caption = "a table caption with set_caption", 
  style = "Table Caption")

4.3 Cross-references

In Quarto, table links use the table label @tbl-tablabel where tablabel is the label you put on the table chunk. In the text it looks like this Table 4.3 (note this is broken in Word output). The chunk yaml looks like this

#| label: tbl-tablabel
#| tbl-cap: "my caption"
Table 4.3: This is a table with a number.
Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1954 NA NA NA NA NA NA 1 2 3 5 5 6
1955 7 8 8 10 11 12 11 10 12 12 12 14
1956 17 20 22 24 26 28 30 30 32 33 35 36
1957 37 39 40 42 43 43 44 46 47 48 51 54
1958 54 55 57 57 57 58 58 61 62 62 63 63
1959 65 67 68 70 71 72 72 73 74 74 75 76
1960 78 79 78 80 83 83 86 86 87 88 89 90
1961 91 90 90 90 90 92 93 93 94 94 95 96
1962 95 96 95 93 94 93 95 97 98 99 NA NA
Note:
kable

4.4 Dynamic table captions

You can create captions dynamically.

Code 
dt <- mtcars[1:10, 1:6]
tbl_cap <- paste("This is a dynamically created caption. The length of mtcars is", nrow(mtcars), "rows. Here we show", nrow(dt), "rows.")

Unfortunately you cannot dynamically create your chunk labels too.

Table 4.4: This is a dynamically created caption. The length of mtcars is 32 rows. Here we show 10 rows.
mpg cyl disp hp drat wt
Mazda RX4 21.0 6 160.0 110 3.90 2.620
Mazda RX4 Wag 21.0 6 160.0 110 3.90 2.875
Datsun 710 22.8 4 108.0 93 3.85 2.320
Hornet 4 Drive 21.4 6 258.0 110 3.08 3.215
Hornet Sportabout 18.7 8 360.0 175 3.15 3.440
Valiant 18.1 6 225.0 105 2.76 3.460
Duster 360 14.3 8 360.0 245 3.21 3.570
Merc 240D 24.4 4 146.7 62 3.69 3.190
Merc 230 22.8 4 140.8 95 3.92 3.150
Merc 280 19.2 6 167.6 123 3.92 3.440
Note:
kable