CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rhtml-tableknitrxtable
Max Power
Max Power

Reputation: 8954

Getting Column-Names to Wrap in R/Kable() HTML Table

I'm trying to produce an HTML table output from an R data frame and am unable to get some long column names to wrap for a multi-line header row. Here is a minimal reproducible example of my current code and output: 

library(datasets)
library(knitr)
library(kableExtra)

data(iris)

Output top 5 rows of iris table as html formatted table:

sink('my_file_path.html')
names_spaced <- c('Sepal Length', 'Sepal Width', 'Petal Length', 
                  'Petal Width Long Col Name', 'Species')

kable(head(iris), 
      format='html', 
      digits=1, 
      row.names=FALSE, 
      align='lccccc', 
      col.names = names_spaced)

sink()

When I open the saved file in the browser, my header row is just one line, but I need the words to wrap to one or two lines (hence 'Petal Width Long Col Name').

kable_styling function has a param bootstrap_options but that doesn't seem to have what I need. I also tried inserting \n within the column-names but to no avail.

I am not averse to using the xtable package instead of kable/knitr if that's part of the solution.

Upvotes: 14

Views: 9226

Answers (1)

Gregor de Cillia
Gregor de Cillia

Reputation: 7635

It is possible to create linebreaks with HTML syntax. In order for that to work, you will have to set the escape argument of kable to FALSE.

library(knitr)
data(iris)

sink('my_file_path.html')
names_spaced <- c(
  'Sepal Length', 'Sepal Width', 'Petal Length', 
  'Petal Width<br/> Long Col Name',                  ## add <br/>
  'Species')

kable(head(iris), 
      format='html', 
      digits=1, 
      row.names=FALSE, 
      align='lccccc', 
      col.names = names_spaced,
      escape = FALSE)                                ## disable html escape to 
                                                     ## make <br/> work

sink()

Upvotes: 14

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