Align Graphics in R Markdown Documents

by edpflager

This time around I am covering aligning graphics in PDF putout for R Markdown. Unfortunately this tip only works in PDF output, not in HTML or Word.

Occasionally, perhaps rarely for some, you may want to place two graphics next to each other in your R Markdown documents. By default you can have the bottom edge of your graphics (aka the baseline) align easily, using the technique I’ve covered previously:

![](3inchSquare.png)\ ![](1inchSquare.png)\

The output that is produced does have a gap between the images though, because you need a separation in the code between the first image and the second one so the KNITR engine doesn’t get confused. (more…)

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Photo Break: Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

by edpflager

In early October for almost 50 years now, Albuquerque, New Mexico welcomes hundreds of thousands of spectators for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Over 1,000 hot air balloon pilots compete and take part in a week long event with various activities. Early morning hours see the dawn patrol lift off, mass ascensions of balloons and …

Boxedtext with tcolorbox

by edpflager

When generating PDF documents with R Markdown, you may want to emphasize a section of text or set it up as something akin to a pull quote. According to the documentation for the LaTeX tcolorbox package, it “provides an environment for colored and framed text boxes with a heading line. Optionally, such a box can be split in an upper and a lower part.”

While that sounds simple enough, the variations are fairly extensive. While not everything I tried worked out like it would when using a LaTeX application, R Markdown was able to do some very advanced formatting. Keep in mind that the documentation for this package is extensive and more than 400 pages. If you find these examples intriguing, definitely look into tcolorbox more and experiment with what you can do with it in R Markdown!

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Add Horizontal Lines or Rules

by edpflager

 A very quick tip that works if you are creating PDF, Word or HTML output from your R Markdown code. If you want to insert a horizontal line (or rule) in your document, you can use three (or more) asterisks (***), three or more underscores (___) or three or more hyphens (—). Just remember to have a blank line before and after them so the R Markdown engine can parse the code correctly.

Here is a code example:

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Wrap text around Graphics

by edpflager

Building on my earlier posts about including graphics in your R Markdown output, this post will demonstrate how to wrap text around graphics in your R Markdown document. The technique will produce output like this where text is wrapped around the figure at the left.

Wrapping text can provide a varied appearance to your document and minimizes white space. It can aid in readability but also tends to deemphasize the importance of the image, so you this technique sparingly.

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