Frequently Asked Questions, including how to get help

A FAQ of common issues.

Details

I get a LaTeX error when I try to compile my document!

Have you installed the LaTeX packages you need? LaTeX packages are different from R packages. Run check_latex_dependencies() to find out if you are missing any. Then install them using your system's LaTeX management application. Or you can try install_latex_dependencies().

In some rmarkdown and LaTeX formats, you also need to add LaTeX dependencies manually. Run report_latex_dependencies() and add the output to your LaTeX preamble, or in Rmarkdown formats, add it to the rmarkdown header like this:
```
header-includes:
  - \usepackage{array}
  - \usepackage{caption}
  ... et cetera
```
Huxtable isn't working in my Rmarkdown beamer_presentation slides.

You may need to set the beamer "fragile" option, like this:
```
# Slide title {.fragile}
```
Numbers in my cells look weird!

You can change numeric formatting using number_format(). Base R options like scipen usually have no effect.

How can I use HTML, TeX etc. in my table?

Use escape_contents():

jams |>
     add_footnote("These jams are <i>tasty</i>!") |>
     set_escape_contents(final(1), everywhere, FALSE) |>
     quick_html()

Alternatively you might consider using markdown in cells, with set_markdown_contents().

I ran caption(ht) <- "Something" and got an error message:
```
Error in UseMethod("caption<-") :
no applicable method for 'caption<-' applied to an object of class "c('huxtable',   'data.frame')"
```
You may have loaded another package with a caption method, e.g. "xtable". Try loading huxtable after xtable.
How can I get line breaks in my cells?

Just insert a line break "\n" in the cell contents. Then make sure that width() is set and wrap() is TRUE (it is by default).
How can I change the font size, font etc. of captions?

There are no direct commands for this. You have to use raw HTML/TeX/other commands within the caption itself. For example to have a bold caption in HTML, you might do something like:
```
set_caption(jams, "<b>Jam Prices</b>")
```
How do I refer to tables in bookdown?

As of version 4.3.0, this is handled automatically for you. Just set the label using label(), then in markdown text do e.g.:
```
\@ref(tab:my-table-label).
```
How do I refer to tables in quarto?

In quarto versions up to 1.3, or when compiling to HTML and other formats, simply use quarto cell labels like label: tbl-foo and refer to them via @tbl-foo.

In quarto versions 1.4 and above, when compiling to PDF, quarto cross-referencing no longer works. Instead, set labels within huxtable using label() or set_label() and refer to them with TeX-only referencing using \ref{label}. You must also set a caption.

Here's an example:
```
A reference to Table \ref{tbl-jams}.

```{r}
label(jams) <- "tbl-jams"
caption(jams) <- "Some jams"
jams
```
```

If you really need cross-referencing for both PDF and other output formats, either downgrade to quarto 1.3, use a different package, or write code to emit appropriate references.

I called library(huxtable) and now my data.table objects are getting printed!

Set options(huxtable.knit_print_df = FALSE).
How can I set a property on an arbitrary group of cells?

If you can't use the mapping-functions interface, and you want to set a property for multiple cells that aren't all in the same rows and/or columns, you could use a little-known fact about R subsetting. If you subset ht[x] where x is two-column numeric matrix, then each row of x indexes a single (row, column) cell. So, for example, here's how to set the background color of cells (2,1), (1, 3) and (4, 2) of a huxtable:
```
indices <- matrix(c(2, 1, 1, 3, 4, 2), ncol = 2, byrow = TRUE)
background_color(jams)[indices] <- "orange"
```
Another useful trick sets properties on the diagonal, using diag():
```
diag(background_color(jams)) <- "grey"
```
I have another problem.

If you have a bug - i.e. there is something wrong with the software - or a feature request, please report it to https://github.com/hughjonesd/huxtable/issues. Otherwise, ask a question on StackOverflow or https://forum.posit.co. That way, other people will benefit from the answers you get.
Can I email you directly?

I'd rather you asked on a public website. If you then email me a link, I may be able to help.

Author

Maintainer: David Hugh-Jones davidhughjones@gmail.com

Frequently Asked Questions, including how to get help

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