Render .Rmd from Rscript does not work

Publishing Your Results
1

Hi!
I used RStudio quite a bit but I am new to using RMarkdown.

I created an .Rmd file to create .pdf-reports. It includes text, R-chunks with ggplot2-plots and tables like:

```{r}
cars <- mtcars[rownames(mtcars)==car,]
m <- as.matrix(cars)
m
kable(m,format="latex",booktabs=TRUE,align="c") %>%
  kable_styling(full_width = T,font_size = 20)
rm(m)

and it works fine when knitting it to pdf!!!

But if I run it from a simple R script (I need to do that as I want to create many of these reports from within a loop) and use

```{r}
for (car in unique(rownames(mtcars))){
  rmarkdown::render(input = "test.Rmd",
                    output_format = "pdf_document",
                    output_file = paste("test_report_", car, Sys.Date(), ".pdf", sep=''))

}

it does not work anymore.

I will get this error:

! LaTeX Error: Environment tabu undefined.

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              
                                                  
l.141 \begin{tabu}

pandoc.exe: Error producing PDF
Error: pandoc document conversion failed with error 43
In addition: Warning message:
running command '"C:/Program Files/RStudio/bin/pandoc/pandoc" +RTS -K512m -RTS test_2.utf8.md --to latex --from markdown+autolink_bare_uris+ascii_identifiers+tex_math_single_backslash --output test_2.pdf --template "C:\Users\NK\Documents\R\win-library\3.4\rmarkdown\rmd\latex\default-1.17.0.2.tex" --highlight-style tango --latex-engine pdflatex --variable graphics=yes --variable "geometry:margin=1in"' had status 43

I loeaded all needed packages in both R and Rmd-file.

library(knitr)
library(markdown)
library(rmarkdown)
library(kableExtra)

But somehow it wants me to define an environment for the table I create with kable. How can I do that? It took me quite some time to adapt the layout for my tables and plots in the .Rmd file and now R does not seem to recognize any of it.

1 Like
2

These may (possibly) help:

1 Like
3

The problem is not on the R side, but on pandoc / LaTeX side. The ! LaTeX Error: Environment tabu undefined message means that a required LaTeX macro is not defined.

I found it rather common problem with Rmarkdown. It can get a bit confusing when using the default templates; as a solution I built my own .tex template, over which I have full control and in which I include all the necessary LaTeX calls (in your case \usepackage{tabu} seems to be missing).

Your can have a look at my Github RPTG repository, and have a look at my template. It is unlikely to suit your needs as it is, but it could be an inspiration for you to make your own.

4

Thank you for you help. Unfortunately, this does not seem to change anything for my problem. But I will keep it in mind in case this problem appears. I have never used "shiny", so I am not familiar with its implementation.

5

It is, indeed, very confusing as it works perfectly fine when just knitting it directly from the .Rmd-file. This is what I find so confusing. At that point the LaTeX macro seems to be there.
I thought that "render" basically does the same thing as knitting and is just called from another place - the Rscript.

My problem is, that I am not familiar with LateX. So, I don't have any idea how it works. I will try to follow your example and see if I can built my own .tex template.

But how and where would I then include it? In my R.file or in the .Rmd-file or do I need to call it when using the render function?

Thank you for help!!

6

My suggestion:

  • copy the Report.tex template from my github to your working directory (or someplace else, and use the full path; working directory makes debugging easier)
  • in the YAML heading of your .Rmd file include this reference:
output:
  pdf_document:
    latex_engine: xelatex
    template: Report.tex

The indentations are important.

  • then run your script again; it should not fail on \begin{tabu}, since package tabu is attached in my template.
7

I realize this is probably old news by now, but I remembered there is an easier way to get the {tabu} LaTeX macro to work than building it into a a custom tex template: include it in header-includes section of the YAML header of your Rmd file.
For example (copied from http://haozhu233.github.io/kableExtra/awesome_table_in_pdf.pdf by Hao Zhu)

header-includes:
- \usepackage{booktabs}
- \usepackage{longtable}
- \usepackage{array}
- \usepackage{multirow}
- \usepackage[table]{xcolor}
- \usepackage{wrapfig}
- \usepackage{float}
- \usepackage{colortbl}
- \usepackage{pdflscape}
- \usepackage{tabu}
- \usepackage{threeparttable}
- \usepackage[normalem]{ulem}

You are likely to end up writing your own template anyway to get more control, but this will help to start out with generated reports.

2 Likes