This document provides a collection of my tweets containing tips and tricks related to RMarkdown. This document is mostly to organize my own thoughts since it became increasingly difficult to find the tweet I had in mind and also to remember which tip I had shared and which I wanted to share. And, although it’s for personal use, I am hoping that others might also find these tips and tricks useful. I will keep updating this document as I add new tweets.
If you are reading this on GitHub README, see this webpage instead to see the tweets rendered properly: https://indrajeetpatil.github.io/RmarkdownTips/
All the source code for this document can be found on
GitHub: https://github.com/IndrajeetPatil/RmarkdownTips
Most of these tips are from Yihui Xie’s books and I would highly recommend that you check them out. Except for the knitr, all other books are available online for free.
I would also like to thank Christophe Dervieux, who has patiently answered my Rmarkdown-related questions, queries, and comments on Twitter, GitHub, and StackOverflow. His kindness and patience is boundless, not to mention his knowledge of the markdown-universe.
These are in no particular order, and, like my brain, these are scattered all over the place. 😅
Reusing code chunks in \#rmarkdown (using `<<>>`) is a really cool feature, esp. in teaching contexts! ♻️
— Indrajeet Patil (@patilindrajeets) July 9, 2021
You can introduce students to code components piece-by-piece without having to repeat yourself in the underlying document! 👩🏫
For more, see-https://t.co/Hup2mjd6dl\#rstats pic.twitter.com/KCdEhs2ACv
rmarkdown::render()Sometimes you may wish to render an \#rmarkdown document from a code chunk of *another* document.
— Indrajeet Patil (@patilindrajeets) July 13, 2021
E.g., if you're writing a paper and want to render the supplementary info document from the main document.
Doing so is as simple as this 👇! 🙌
Ref. https://t.co/FDfAZ2q7WA\#rstats pic.twitter.com/9In6J8dlNl
Sometimes you want to:
— Indrajeet Patil (@patilindrajeets) July 8, 2021
♻️ reuse text (e.g. methods, session info) across documents
✂️ break a long document into smaller ones
In \#rmarkdown, you can create a "child" document and insert its contents into a "parent" document! 👩👦https://t.co/QOtOxwwmbN
🎥 1-min demo👇\#rstats pic.twitter.com/tMzF6HUuTb
If you want to, \#rmarkdown provides a chunk option to easily add line numbers to source code and output text! 🧮
— Indrajeet Patil (@patilindrajeets) July 6, 2021
Ref: https://t.co/bM2oL6kpqt
N.B.
- You'll need to use syntax highlighting theme `tango`.
- Although only HTML output is shown, it works for PDF as well.\#rstats pic.twitter.com/8wKwA9uTwt
Maybe I was the only one who didn't know this for a long time, but you don't have to knit \#rmarkdown document for a preview *every time* you make a change.
— Indrajeet Patil (@patilindrajeets) February 27, 2021
Just run `xaringan::infinite_moon_reader()` function, and the preview will change after saving the document! 🙌🕺\#rstats pic.twitter.com/Tz3Y6hNGh3
If you've got a code chunk in \#rmarkdown that produces multiple plots, they will by default be shown sequentially.
— Indrajeet Patil (@patilindrajeets) May 11, 2021
But sometimes one may want them to be instead displayed side-by-side 👯
Below is a 1-min demo of how to do so 🙌
For more, see: https://t.co/KXLAuEXP78\#rstats pic.twitter.com/cNBn4WnJWZ
If an \#rmarkdown code chunk has multiple dataframes, they will be displayed one on top of another.
— Indrajeet Patil (@patilindrajeets) June 23, 2021
But what if we want them to be instead displayed side-by-side (maybe to compare them?) 👯
Here is a \< 1-min demo of how to do so
For more, see: https://t.co/gUJZLfYxNR\#rstats pic.twitter.com/xDHQB9lFjD