When printing pdf from Rmarkdown size of tables too big

Question

I have tried to look into other posts but did not find anything that works

Basically when I print as pdf the html file obtained with Rmarkdown the tables end up being really huge and after trying several codes I am not really able to resize them, example below

page 1

also, when using export_summs the spacing between the lines is ridiculously wide, and I cant resize that either

page 2

Is there a universal way to resize tables? something like {r out.width="50%", out.height="50%"} ?

Thanks, Andriy

Answer 1

It would be helpful if you could provide a small, reproducible example. I've tried to recreate your conditions the best I could here:

---
title: "PDF Table | Example"
author: "Alexander P. Christensen"
date: "2/4/2022"
output:
  pdf_document:
    extra_dependencies: ["adjustbox"]
---

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

## Load packages
{r load packages, echo = TRUE, eval = TRUE, comment = NA, message = FALSE, warning = FALSE}
library(jtools)
library(knitr)
library(kableExtra)

## Example Table
{r example, echo = TRUE, eval = TRUE, comment = NA, message = FALSE, warning = FALSE}
kable(
  head(iris), booktabs = TRUE, linesep = ""
)

## Example Smaller Table (shrinks vertically)
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{.5} 
{r example_smaller, echo = TRUE, eval = TRUE, comment = NA, message = FALSE, warning = FALSE}
kable(
  head(iris), booktabs = TRUE, linesep = ""
) %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = "hold_position")

\newpage

## Example Even Smaller Table (shrinks vertically more)
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{.25}
{r example_even_smaller, echo = TRUE, eval = TRUE, comment = NA, message = FALSE, warning = FALSE}
kable(
  head(iris), booktabs = TRUE, linesep = ""
) %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = "hold_position")

## Obtain LaTeX output for adjustbox (next example)
{r example_latex, echo = TRUE, eval = FALSE, comment = NA, message = FALSE, warning = FALSE}
kable(
  head(iris), booktabs = TRUE, linesep = "", format = "latex"
) %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = "hold_position")

This code will output:

\begin{table}[!h]
\begin{tabular}{rrrrl}
\toprule
Sepal.Length & Sepal.Width & Petal.Length & Petal.Width & Species\\
\midrule
5.1 & 3.5 & 1.4 & 0.2 & setosa\\
4.9 & 3.0 & 1.4 & 0.2 & setosa\\
4.7 & 3.2 & 1.3 & 0.2 & setosa\\
4.6 & 3.1 & 1.5 & 0.2 & setosa\\
5.0 & 3.6 & 1.4 & 0.2 & setosa\\
5.4 & 3.9 & 1.7 & 0.4 & setosa\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

## Adjust Full Table
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1}
\begin{table}[!h]
\begin{adjustbox}{width = 3in, totalheight = 3in, center}
\begin{tabular}{rrrrl}
\toprule
Sepal.Length & Sepal.Width & Petal.Length & Petal.Width & Species\\
\midrule
5.1 & 3.5 & 1.4 & 0.2 & setosa\\
4.9 & 3.0 & 1.4 & 0.2 & setosa\\
4.7 & 3.2 & 1.3 & 0.2 & setosa\\
4.6 & 3.1 & 1.5 & 0.2 & setosa\\
5.0 & 3.6 & 1.4 & 0.2 & setosa\\
5.4 & 3.9 & 1.7 & 0.4 & setosa\\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{adjustbox}
\end{table}

\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{.5} will adjust your table vertically and can be placed before any kable() code. I assume this works the same for jtools::export_summs.

\begin{adjustbox}{width = 3in, totalheight = 3in, center} will adjust your table to your desired dimensions automatically.

Using adjustbox requires a few more steps. First, you'll need to setup your YAML with extra dependencies:

output:
  pdf_document:
    extra_dependencies: ["adjustbox"]

Second, you'll need to output a LaTeX table from kable() with the format = "latex" option:

kable(
  head(iris), booktabs = TRUE, linesep = "", format = "latex"
) %>%
  kable_styling(latex_options = "hold_position")

Finally, you'll need to insert your table chunk to replace the ... in the code below:

\begin{table}[!h]
\begin{adjustbox}{width = 3in, totalheight = 3in, center}
\begin{tabular}{rrrrl}
\toprule

...

\end{tabular}
\end{adjustbox}
\end{table}

Change the width and totalheight to your desired size