Rmarkdown Latex Align a figure and a kbl table (output PDF)

Question

I have the following Rmarkdown Trial:

---
title: "Test kableExtra"
date: "3/20/2021"
output: pdf_document
classoption: landscape
---

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE)
library(tidyverse)
library(kableExtra)

```

# R Markdown

```{r echo=FALSE}
library(knitr)
library(xtable)

dt <- mtcars[1:5, 1:6]

t1 <- kbl(dt, booktabs = T)
t2 <- kbl(dt, booktabs = T)

t3 <- ggplot(dt,aes(x=mpg,y=cyl)) +
  geom_point()

png(file="plot1.png",width=200,height=200)
print(t3)
dev.off() # close the png file

```
Some Text

\begin{table}[!h]
    \begin{minipage}{.5\linewidth}
      \centering
```{r echo=FALSE}
t1
```
\end{minipage}%
    \begin{minipage}{.5\linewidth}
      \centering
    \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{plot1.png}
    \end{minipage}
\end{table}

output

And when you knit it it works ok, but I would like the graph and the table to be aligned on top. Anybody an idea?

If you have a better idea to put a ggplot next to a kbl table I'm all ears!

Thanks, Michael

Answer 1

The following code might help:

---
title: "Test kableExtra"
date: "3/20/2021"
output: pdf_document
header-includes:
  - \usepackage{multicol}
  - \newcommand{\btwocol}{\begin{multicols}{2}}
  - \newcommand{\etwocol}{\end{multicols}}
classoption: landscape
---

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE)
library(tidyverse)
library(kableExtra)
```

# R Markdown

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor
incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis 
nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. 
Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore 
eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt
in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

\btwocol

```{r echo=FALSE, results="asis", message=FALSE}
# sample data
dt <- mtcars[1:5, 1:6]

# create the table
t1 <- kable(dt, booktabs = TRUE)

# create the plot
t3 <- ggplot(dt,aes(x=mpg, y=cyl)) +
  geom_point()

# print the table 
print(t1)

cat("\\columnbreak")

# print the plot
print(t3)

cat("\\pagebreak")
```

\etwocol

Notes:

1. Conceptually the solution is presented in the accepted answer here; however, I couldn't reproduce the code there.

2. I stripped down your initial code to leave a minimal example. That is, I removed the code for table t2 and the calls for library(knitr) and library(xtable).

3. Other changes to your initial code include:

   • The call for LaTeX packages and commands under header-includes in the YAML section of your Rmd file

   • The addition of some lorem ipsum text to see more clearly how objects are aligned with respect to one another

   • Setting results="asis" in the R code chunk that generates the table and the plot

   • The use of function kable() instead of kbl(). If you use kbl() the table is a little bit off with respect to the plot (I don't know why). I recommend you to play with both functions