NEWS.md

gt (development version)

New features

• A new function, cols_label_with(), is added for relabeling columns with functions. It allows for renaming functions to applied to arbitrary sets of columns, using tidyselect. It's like rename_with() for your gt table, but doesn't need unique names for labeling.

gt 0.8.0

New features

• The new function sub_values() is here for subbing in arbitrary text in body cells, based on value, a regex, or a specialized function. It's like a supercharged find-and-replace for your gt table (#703). (#1066)

• We want the setting of styles to be as easy as possible so, to that end, we've added a helpful new function: tab_style_body(). This function is a bit like sub_values() and a bit like tab_style(). The idea is that basic style attributes can be set based on values in the table body. We can target body cells though value, regex, and custom matching rules, and, apply styles to them and their surrounding context (e.g., styling an entire row or column wherein the match is found). The help file at ?tab_style_body provides copious examples w/ eye catching visuals (#863). (#1108)

• The fmt_date(), fmt_time(), and fmt_datetime() functions have been improved so much, I don't even know where to begin. The fmt_datetime() function has an enhanced format argument that accepts CLDR-style formatting patterns (much more powerful and flexible than the strptime() patterns). The fmt_datetime() function will detect the pattern type given in format. The date_style and time_style arguments still exist but have been extended to accept more style keywords. There is now the concept of flexible date and time formats that are locale-aware (the locale argument is new to these functions). The info_date_style() and info_time_style() functions have been enhanced to give you display tables will all the style possibilities. All of this goodness extends to the vec_fmt_*() variants (vec_fmt_date(), vec_fmt_time(), and vec_fmt_datetime()). The documentation for all of this has been overhauled and provides many explanations and examples for your edification (#531, #1052). (#1053)

• We can now have decimal alignment for numeric values and this made possible with the new cols_align_decimal() function. The function ensures that columns targeted are right-aligned, that accounting notation is supported, and that footnote marks don't interfere (#139, #144, #560, #673). (#1058, #1092; assist by the inimitable @steveputman!)

• We can easily add a caption to a gt table (or replace an existing one) with the new and convenient tab_caption() function (#1048). (#1051, thank you @billdenney!)

• So you've got a gt table and you want a value or two from that table to appear elsewhere in your R Markdown or Quarto document. Previously, you had to recreate it in some way but now you can use extract_cells()! That function will extract a vector of cell data from a gt_tbl object. The output vector will have the cell data formatted in the same way as the table. (#1045, #1047)

• The as_raw_html() function is useful for generating an HTML string for table-in-HTML-email situations and for HTML embedding purposes (with that inline_css = TRUE option). While the CSS-inlining has been mostly fine, it had two major problems: (1) it was slow, and (2) the underlying R code was so underpowered that it just couldn't keep up with changes to our SCSS styles. This is now solved by integrating a package that uses the juice JS library (we call it juicyjuice!). This solution is far more performant and correct (#455, #540, #837, #858, #915, #1093). (#1114)

• There's now padding around an HTML table! And you can even control the left/right (container.padding.x) and top/bottom (container.padding.y) padding values through tab_options()! This is very helpful since tables were way too close to paragraphs of text in rendered HTML documents produced by R Markdown and Quarto (#590, #1105). (#1116)

• The table stub can now freely merge with other columns using any of the cols_merge*() collection of functions. This is great if you want to independently format the stub and other columns and then bring them together in interesting ways. (#1122)

• We've added the ability to treat columns containing row names or group names as Markdown text. This provides the process_md argument in the gt() function. If this option is taken (example below) then the supplied names will be treated to ensure that there are unique IDs for later targeting (for tab_style(), tab_footnote(), etc.) (#694). (#1097)

  dplyr::tibble(x = c("**a**", "b", "*c*"), y = c("*A*", "*B*", "*B*"), z = 1:3) %>%
    gt(rowname_col = "x", groupname_col = "y", process_md = TRUE)

• If you find yourself not knowing the ID values of certain cells in the table (sometimes necessary for adding footnotes, styles, etc.) the new tab_info() function can help! Use that with a gt object and you'll get an informative table that summarizes all of the table's ID values and their associated labels (#1102). (#1104)

• Much of gt is about adding things to a table but what about doing the opposite (taking things away)? The new family of rm_*() functions (rm_header(), rm_stubhead(), rm_spanners(), rm_footnotes(), rm_source_notes(), and rm_caption()) let us safely remove parts of a gt table. This can be advantageous in those instances where one might obtain a gt table though other means (like from another pkg) but prefer to excise some parts of it (#790, #1005). (#1073)

• The table stub column can now have its contents formatted with any of the fmt_*() functions. We also added the stub() helper function to help select the stub column (#747). (#1038)

• The new formatter function fmt_roman() lets us easily format numbers to Roman numerals (either as uppercase or lowercase letters). The vec_fmt_roman() vector-formatting function was also introduced here. (#1035)

• The data_color() function allows us to color the background of cells based on data, and gt smartly chooses a text color that provides the most contrast between text and background. We wanted to improve that feature so now data_color() has a contrast_algo argument that allows us to choose between two color contrast algorithms: "apca" (Accessible Perceptual Contrast Algorithm; new, and the default now) and "wcag" (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines). (#1062)

• The accessibility of structurally-complicated gt tables (i.e., multi-level headings, irregular headers, row groups, etc.) was addressed by work that follows the W3C WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) guidance. Now, screen readers can better describe gt tables with such complex structures (#926). (#988, thanks @jooyoungseo!)

Minor improvements and bug fixes

• The docx output format is now better detected in R Markdown and Quarto (#1040). (#1084, thanks @cderv!)

• Replaced all match.arg() calls with *rlang's match_arg() for better error output (#672). (#1099, thanks @mojister!)

• Project website improvements; we now have a doublet of sites: (1) https://gt.rstudio.com and (2) https://gt.rstudio.com/dev (#1074, thanks @ddsjoberg!)

• The dependency on the stringr package has been removed by replacing the remaining stringr-based function calls in the package with base-R equivalents. (#1043)

gt 0.7.0

New features

• We can now export gt tables as Word documents. This is thanks to @thebioengineer (Ellis Hughes!) who not only made this type of output work through gtsave() (writes the .docx file) but also through as_word() (gives you an OOXML string) (#121, #929). (#962, #986, #1016)

• A whole new family of vector formatting functions (of the form vec_fmt_*()) has entered the package! After all, why should columns have all the formatting fun? If you have vectors in need of formatting, we have 14 of these functions, adapted from their corresponding fmt_*() functions. You can control the output style of the resulting character vector with the output argument. This can either be "auto" (the default), "plain", "html", "latex", "rtf", or "word". In knitr rendering (i.e., Quarto or R Markdown), the "auto" option will choose the correct output value; this is great for incorporating formatted values in inline text. (#899, #995)

• It's now incredibly easy to have colorful and stylish tables thanks to the new opt_stylize() function. We provide you with a carefully curated set of background colors, line colors, and line styles. There are six styles and six color variations, giving you 36 combinations of style and color to choose from (#238). (#987)

• The tab_stub_indent() function was added to allow for fine control over row label indentation. (#999, #1002)

• The fmt_duration() function is now available for formatting values to time durations whether those input values are numbers or of the difftime class. It provides a wide array of options so you can get the formatting of time duration values just right (#403). (#916)

• Generating PNG files from gt tables using gtsave() is now way better due to the move away from webshot to its sequel package webshot2 (#621, #885). (#985)

• A number of accessibility enhancements for HTML table outputs were undertaken to make gt one of the most accessible table packages around (#678, #679, #680). (#977, #978, #979, #981; thank you, @jooyoungseo, for all of this)

• Errors and warnings, though we don't often like to receive them, look much better now since we've integrated the cli package into gt! (#963)

Minor improvements and bug fixes

• We can now supply data from adjacent columns to user-supplied aggregation functions in summary_rows() and grand_summary_rows() (#383, #690, #952). (#1018)

• Initial alignments in the table stub are now more intelligently determined in gt() by examining the content of the column (the "rowname_col") that will comprise the stub. If values are predominantly number-like then a right alignment will be chosen, otherwise row labels will be left aligned. (#999)

• Enhanced automatic column alignment (set to "auto" by default in the gt() function) by probing the contents of the columns. This ensures that string-based dates/times/datetimes receive a better appearance before formatting. (#997)

• gt tables no longer break table numbering in R Markdown and Quarto documents. (#1003, thanks @cscheid!)

• The as_latex() documentation was updated to provide guidance on necessary LaTeX dependencies. (#1022, thanks @coatless!)

• Fixed a bug where footnote marks would not be rendered in the stub column representing row groups (#1001). (#1014)

• Using gtsave() in a Quarto or R Markdown code chunk will no longer generate any output, which is good since we don't want any (#974). (#1011)

• Fixed an issue where footnote marks would not be set directly to cell text generated from fmt_markdown() (#893, #993). (#1013)

• All testthat tests have been migrated to the 3rd Edition of testthat. Also, the tests run much faster now. (#959)

gt 0.6.0

New features

• RTF output support more suitable for Pharma users: (1) table styling now defaults to a look with far less table borders, which is more common for Pharma-based applications; (2) RTF table generation can make use of the new page-layout options (page.*) added to the tab_options() function (e.g., page.orientation, page.numbering, etc.) (#311, #653). (#927)

• The tab_footnote() function now allows for non-location footnote by making the locations argument optional; Any footnotes declared in this way will have their notes precede any location-based notes in the footer area (#879). (#925)

• The fmt_partsper() function was added so that we can format values as high-ratio, dimensionless quantities (e.g., "per-mille", "ppm", etc.). These are less common that percentage values but no less important (#608). (#914)

• The sub_*() group of functions were added to make simple and common substitutions of data in a gt table with not-too-much effort. The functions added are: sub_missing(), sub_zero(), sub_small_vals(), and sub_large_vals(). The sub_missing() function replaces fmt_missing() (and this deprecates the latter) (#904, #910, #911). (#912)

gt 0.5.0

New features

• The tab_spanner() and tab_spanner_delim() functions now support the addition of column spanners with unlimited levels (previously, only a single level of spanner column labels was possible to add) (#746). (#905)

• There is now support for the Indian numbering system, making the placement of digit-grouping separators correspond to thousand, lakh, crore, and higher quantities. This is available for several fmt_*() functions (fmt_number(), fmt_integer(), fmt_currency(), fmt_percent(), and fmt_fraction()) and is exposed as the system argument with two options "intl" (international, the default) and "ind" (Indian).

Minor improvements and bug fixes

• Enhanced the cols_merge_uncert() function such that different lower and upper uncertainty values could be used (by specifying two columns in the col_uncert argument) (#884). (#888)

• Honor the locale setting from the initial gt() call when rendering summary rows (#906). (#907)

• Fixed an issue where styles that spanned multiple columns and rows in a summary block were not fully rendered (#859). (#924)

• Improved LaTeX rendering of certain characters (e.g, \, ~, &, etc.). (#903)

• Aggregations with summary_rows() and grand_summary_rows() that might return an NaN (common case is using mean(., na.rm = TRUE) on an all-NA column) now return NA. This removes the evaluation error that would otherwise occur and provides an opportunity to replace the NA with an explanatory replacement string (#471, #827). (#887)

gt 0.4.0

New features

• We now have the ability to display row group labels as a column in the stub (as an alternative to these grouping labels appearing as header rows). This is made possible with the new option row_group.as_column in tab_options() (the default keeps the preexisting behavior) (#291). (#855)

• The table footer (which can contain footnotes and source notes) now has numerous layout options in tab_options(): footnotes.multiline, footnotes.sep, source_notes.multiline, and source_notes.sep. With the *.multline options, we can control whether notes span across separate lines (TRUE, the default) or are kept together as a paragraph (FALSE). For the latter layout option, we can control the separation between consecutive notes with the *.sep options (the default is " "). The work done here also fixes long-standing issues with footer output in the LaTeX and RTF formats (#593, #833). (#864)

• The fmt_fraction() formatter was added, allowing for flexible formatting of numerical values to mixed fractions of configurable accuracy (#402). (#753)

• Added the opt_horizontal_padding() and opt_vertical_padding() functions to easily expand or contract an HTML table in the horizontal and vertical directions (#868). (#882)

• There is now a locale argument in the gt() function. If set, formatter functions like fmt_number() will automatically use this global locale while formatting. There also remains the the option to override the global locale with any non-NULL value set for locale within a fmt_*() call (#682). (#866)

Minor improvements and bug fixes

• There is now more flexibility, improved documentation, and more testing/reliability for the date/time formatting functions (fmt_date(), fmt_time(), and fmt_datetime()). Now, Date and POSIXct columns are allowed to be formatted with these functions. With fmt_datetime(), we can even supply a format code for generation of custom dates/times (#612, #775, #800). (#801)

• Footnote marks for HTML tables now have an improved appearance. They are slightly larger, set better against the text they follow, and, asterisks are specially handled such that their sizing is consistent with other marks (#511). (#876)

• Further improving support for color value inputs, gt now allows shorthand hexadecimal color values (like #333) and the use of the transparent CSS color keyword (#839, #856). (#870)

• The rendering of percent signs in HTML output was changed from the problematic HTML entity % to simply %. This solves issues with tables incorrectly rendering percent signs in some situations (#657, #686). (#871)

• All values supplied within cells_title() are now checked more rigorously, erroring and providing actionable messaging when stopping does occur (#424). (#783)

• Added a missing column entry in the documentation for the gtcars dataset. Thanks, @luisDVA for providing this fix! (#883)

gt 0.3.1

New features

• We now have the force_sign argument in several numeric formatting functions (fmt_number(), fmt_integer(), fmt_scientific(), fmt_engineering(), fmt_percent(), fmt_currency(), and fmt_bytes()). This makes it possible to force the appearance of the positive sign for positive values (#773). (#793)

• It's now possible to add padding to the column labels and heading locations in HTML tables with two new arguments added to tab_options(): column_labels.padding and heading.padding. Several options already exist for easily changing the vertical padding of certain locations, so, these additions make it possible to fully alter the padding from top to bottom (without resorting to using CSS) (#770). (#795)

• The whitespace argument has been added to cell_text() and this provides many options for making whitespace easier to handle in HTML output tables (#714). (#797)

Minor improvements and bug fixes

• Fixed LaTeX rendering for tables that have a stub; now data row cells are correctly laid out.

• LaTeX output tables now properly render summary rows. In addition, grand summary rows are now rendered in LaTeX outputs (previously, grand summary rows were ignored). This clears the long-standing issue in #625. (#768)

• Titles and optional subtitles in LaTeX output tables have an improved appearance, and the underlying code was rewritten to guard against more edge cases that might lead to failing LaTeX output. (#779)

• The data argument in the cols_label() and cols_width() functions was renamed to .data to avoid a partial matching issue (raised in #715). (#772)

• Fixed a bug where styles may not be applied correctly to summary row cells in HTML output tables (#752). (#782)

• Incorporated the full use of X11 color names for styling HTML tables. Now, named colors like gray50 won't throw an error. Additionally, CSS3 colors that have no equivalent in X11 (like Crimson and RebeccaPurple) will now also just work (#712). (#787)

• Fixed a bug that occurs in the following rare circumstance: when using summary_rows() with no stub, a new column is generated internally and given the name rowname; but this can conflict with a column that has the same name, generating duplicate column names and not erroring at that instant (#749). (#792)

• The image generation functions local_image() and web_image() are enhanced such that multiple image paths/URLs can now be handled without errors. Thanks, @primaj for the initial work on this in #738. Fixes #510. (#803)

• Fixed a bug that occurs when using a font with the cell_text() along with other styles. Fixes #661 and #802. (#805)

• Implemented a fix for the situation where tab_style() is used along with cells_summary() as a location and, also, row_group_order() is used to reorder row groups. This resulted in a non-application of the style to the targeted summary cells (#812). (#814)

gt 0.3.0

This release focuses on improvements to two main areas:

1. Better RTF output support:

   • RTF table generation is now fit for use following an extensive rewrite of internal RTF rendering functions.
   • RTF table output with gtsave(..., "<file>.rtf") and as_rtf() now has much more feature parity compared to HTML tables; we can now add summary rows, format table text with Markdown via fmt_markdown(), and expect tables that look acceptable in Word and text editors that are RTF-compatible.

2. Implementation of tidyselect semantics:

   • References to columns (by way of the columns argument in many gt functions) now better adhere to tidyselect semantics.
   • Instead of using columns = vars(a, b), we now use columns = c(a, b) (columns = c("a", "b") also works, and this type of expression always has been an option in gt).
   • Other tidyselect idioms should also work; things like using where() to target columns (e.g., gt(exibble) %>% cols_hide(columns = where(is.numeric)) will hide all numeric columns) and negation (e.g., columns = -c(a, b)) function as expected.

Breaking changes and deprecations

• Column labels subordinate to column spanner labels had their alignment forced to be "center" but now there is no specialized alignment of column labels under spanners. Should you need the old behavior, tab_style() can be used along with cell_text(align = "center") for all columns that live under spanners. (#662)

• The automatic alignment of integer values has been changed from "center" to "right". To correct for this, use tab_style() with cell_text(align = "center") for all affected columns. (#662)

• As part of the tidyselect changes made in this release, using columns = TRUE (to mean that all columns should be considered) has now been replaced with columns = everything(). Using the former will result in a warning message. (#718)

• While vars() is still reexported in gt, its use with the columns argument (present in a large number of functions) is deprecated and a warning message will appear if it is used. In a later release, it can be expected that vars() will no longer be reexported. (#718)

• The others_label argument of tab_row_group() is deprecated since it was confusing to use. To specify a default label for row groups, the course of action is now to use tab_options(row_group.default_label = <label>). (#699)

New features

• RTF table output via gtsave(..., "<file>.rtf") and as_rtf() should produce more robust tables (allowing use of summary_rows(), fmt_markdown(), etc.). And tables generated as RTF can now take advantage of cols_width() for flexible modifications of column widths. (#638 and #696)

• All functions with a columns argument can now take advantage of gt's full adherence to tidyselect semantics (use columns = c(a, b) or columns = c("a", "b") instead of columns = vars(a, b)). (#718)

• New location helper functions have been added to make it possible to style more locations and add footnotes to once inaccessible locations; these are cells_stub_summary(), cells_stub_grand_summary(), cells_footnotes(), and cells_source_notes(). Note that footnotes cannot be declared with the latter two functions. (#737)

• The cols_unhide() function has been added as a complement to the cols_hide() function. This is useful when provided the gt_tbl object without the source data and code to recreate it and there are hidden columns that should be made visible. (#710)

• The new formatting function fmt_bytes() helps you to transform numerical values to byte sizes with human readable units. (#750)

• A new column merging function, cols_merge_n_pct(), works to merge a count column and a percentage column together. This function will automatically hide the col_pct column by default (but that can be changed by setting autohide = FALSE). (#683)

• Added the caption argument to gt(). This brings caption support to gt tables in R Markdown and bookdown documents. (#689)

Minor improvements

• The accounting option is now available in the fmt_percent() and fmt_number() formatting functions (previously it was only present in fmt_currency()). (#756)

• In RTF documents generated through as_rtf() and gtsave(..., filename = "<file>.rtf"), there is now a page_numbering option for adding page numbers to either the "footer" or the "header" areas (the default is "none"). (#755)

• tab_spanner_delim() gained a split argument to govern whether delimiter splitting should occur at the "first" or "last" instance of delim. For example, if the column name "a.b.c" is present and split = "first" then the spanner column label is "a" and the associated column label will be "b.c"; should split = "last" then the spanner and column will have "a.b" and "c" labels. (#699)

• Added id as an argument to tab_spanner() and tab_row_group(), which is useful for later access to these locations (especially when spanner or row group labels are complicated). (#665, #699)

• HTML table generation is much faster due to efforts to optimize HTML code generation in the building/rendering phase. (#664)

Bug fixes

• When getting the HTML text for gt table with as_raw_html(..., inline_css = FALSE), the <style> tag content is no longer omitted. (#718)

• Fixed two bugs in tab_row_group(): (1) incorrect reordering of rows (Issue #717), and (2) spurious warnings with multiple calls (Issue #675). (#699)

• The tab_spanner_delim() with gather = TRUE did not work reliably (Issue #626) but was fixed along with other work done to overhaul the function. (#665)

• Correction made to the representation of the PEN (Peruvian Neuvo Sol) currency. (#663)

• Fix for gtsave() when saving an image and specifying a path value. (#592)

gt 0.2.2

New features

• The new opt_table_font() function makes it possible to define a custom font for the entire gt table. The standard fallback fonts are still set by default but the font defined here will take precedence. You could still have different fonts in select locations in the table, and for that you would need to use tab_style() in conjunction with the cell_text() helper function. The new google_font() helper function provides an option for supplying a font available at the Google Fonts service (this is in addition to using system fonts in the font argument). Using the info_google_fonts() function will provide a table with a set of helpful font recommendations from the Google Fonts catalog. The new default_fonts() functions provides a helpful vector of system fallback fonts which works well when defining a vector of fonts. (#591)

• The new opt_css() function makes allows for the addition of custom CSS to a gt table. This CSS will be added after the compiled CSS that gt generates automatically when the gt_tbl object is transformed to an HTML output table. You can supply css as a vector of lines or as a single string. The css() function has been re-exported from htmltools to make it easier to build CSS style declarations. (Also #591)

• Setting the widths of table columns is now easier and more dependable with cols_width(). Widths can be expressed in units of pixels (easily set by use of the px() helper function), as percentages (where the pct() helper function is useful), or a mixture of the two. The function takes into consideration whether an overall table width has been provided with tab_options(table.width = ...). Providing pixel widths for all columns serves to override any table width defined (yielding columns with the exact widths specified). (#561)

• There are new options for numeric formatting: (1) using significant figures (with n_sigfig in fmt_number), and (2) the ability to retain/drop trailing decimal marks (with drop_trailing_dec_mark in fmt_number(), fmt_percent(), and fmt_currency()). Thank you @drolejoel for the suggestion in #535! (#546).

• The new scale_values argument for fmt_percent() makes it easy to use values that are already scaled (and just require the percent mark). Thank you @djohn215 for the suggestion in #559. (#565)

• Font weights expressed as numeric values (e.g., 400, 600, etc.) in cell_text()'s weight argument now works properly. (#591)

Minor improvements and bug fixes

• The data_color() function has been rewritten to improve performance (#543). (#576)

• Restore the ability to have row striping in stub cells (with tab_option()'s row.striping.include_stub = TRUE). Thanks @gergness for creating PR #537, which prompted this final fix. (#564)

gt 0.2.1

• summary_rows() and grand_summary_rows() no longer incorrectly calculate summary values in cases where rows aren't already sorted by group (#556).

• Ensure compatibility with tibble 3.0.0. (#557)

• Adapt tests to changes in dependent packages. (#575)

gt 0.2.0.5

• New package with 80 exported functions for building display tables

gt 0.1.0 (unreleased)