`pkgdown`

[friendly]

How to render tinytable styled HTML tables in pkgdown examples?

Description

When using tinytable in function examples that are rendered by pkgdown::build_site(), the tables appear as plain text/markdown tables rather than styled HTML tables with colors and backgrounds. This makes it difficult to showcase the visual styling capabilities of tinytable in package documentation.
I'm not sure if this is an issue for tinytable or pkgdown. I'll file it here, with a reference in pkgdown

Current Behavior

In my package VisCollin, I have a function tt.colldiag() that creates styled tables with background colors and variable font sizes:

https://github.com/friendly/VisCollin/blob/master/R/tt.colldiag.R

When I run pkgdown::build_site(), the examples execute but the output appears as plain text tables instead of rendered HTML with the styling preserved.

What I've Tried

1. Setting output option conditionally:

   if (knitr::is_html_output()) options(tinytable_print_output = "html")

   Result: No effect in pkgdown examples

2. Explicitly calling print with output parameter:

   tt(cd) |> print(output = "html")

   Result: Error: x must be a data.frame`

3. Checking tinytable's own pkgdown site:
   Even the tinytable documentation examples section appears to show only code, not rendered styled tables

Expected Behavior

When pkgdown renders the examples, I would expect the tinytable output to appear as styled HTML tables with:

• Background colors
• Font size variations
• All other visual styling applied via style_tt()

This is similar to how htmlwidgets are handled in pkgdown examples.

Potential Solutions

Based on research into pkgdown's rendering pipeline, potential solutions could include:

1. Implement a pkgdown_print.tinytable method:
   pkgdown provides a special pkgdown_print() generic that package authors can implement to control how objects render in pkgdown examples. See: https://pkgdown.r-lib.org/reference/pkgdown_print.html

   This method could return the HTML representation of the table for pkgdown to embed.

2. Enhance knit_print.tinytable for pkgdown context:
   Ensure the existing knit_print.tinytable method properly detects and handles the pkgdown rendering context.

3. Documentation guidance:
   If there's a working approach I've missed, documentation showing how to properly render styled tinytables in pkgdown examples would be helpful.

[vincentarelbundock]

Thanks for the suggestion.

Version 0.15.2.1 on Github adds a pkgdown_print.tinytable() method. I ran a test in a very minimal package and simple tables seem to be working.

However, pkgdown seems to override some of tinytable's CSS or JS. Some feature may thus fail, but I'm not sure which ones, and I don't know pkgdown well-enough to know how to circumvent the issue.

[vincentarelbundock]

Note that the tinytable website uses altdoc, not pkgdown.

[friendly]

Ah, that explains why it looks so different with pkgdown.

[friendly]

Is the new print method supposed to work with examples in function documentation? Or do I need to use print() explicitly? My examples for tt.colldiag() are:

#' library(VisCollin)
#' library(tinytable)
#' data(cars, package = "VisCollin")
#' cars.mod <- lm (mpg ~ cylinder + engine + horse + weight + accel + year,
#'                 data = cars)
#' cd <- colldiag(cars.mod, center=TRUE)
#' # show all values, in same order as `cd`
#' tt(cd)
#'
#' # show results in percent
#' tt(cd, percent = TRUE)

I get the same results as before in the pkgdown output.

[vincentarelbundock]

Are you using latest from GitHub?

Does it work as expected in a vignette?

You should not have to call print().

[friendly]

Yes, running the latest from GitHub. It works in the README.Rmd file if I explicitly save and then use include_graphics()

```{r tt-colldiag}
#| out-width: "60%"
tt(cd,
   descending = TRUE,
   fuzz = 0.3,
   font.scale = c(1, 1.5)) |>
  save_tt("man/figures/README-tt-colldiag.png", overwrite = TRUE)

knitr::include_graphics("man/figures/README-tt-colldiag.png")
```

Without that I just get a text table

[vincentarelbundock]

I meant an actual vignette, not the readme.

IIRC, pkgdown first renders README.Rmd to README.md, and then uses the rendered markdown version as the homepage. If that's right, then it would be very complicated to insert HTML tables automatically.

[vincentarelbundock]

I suspect the same applies to man pages.

altdoc concerts man pages to quarto and only then executes the code in the @examples section.

I'm not sure what the order of operations is in pkgdown...

[vincentarelbundock]

Notes to self (diagnostic)

vignettes/example.Rmd

Tables render automatically and correctly with this method:

pkgdown_print.tinytable <- function(x, visible = TRUE) {
  if (!visible) {
    return(invisible())
  }
  # Build table with HTML output for pkgdown
  x <- build_tt(x, output = "html")
  out <- x@table_string
  # Return as browsable HTML (similar to knit_print pattern)
  htmlText <- paste(enc2utf8(out), collapse = " ")
  attr(htmlText, "html") <- TRUE
  attr(htmlText, "browsable_html") <- TRUE
  class(htmlText) <- c("html", "character")
  htmlText
}

@examples

The pkgdown_print.tinytable() does not get dispatched when building the man/ pages with pkgdown. And sanitize_output() incorrectly returns markdown instead of html.

I'm not sure how to detect the environment for pkgdown man pages, but when hard-coding html, I can get tables printed by returning early from print.tinytable() with this:

  x <- build_tt(x, output = "html")
  tab <- x@table_string
  html_tinytable <- htmltools_browsable(tab)
  return(html_tinytable)

README.Rmd

Not sure yet.

[vincentarelbundock]

More info: The pkgdown website for gt shows tables, but they are actually PNG tables with hard-coded links.

https://github.com/rstudio/gt/blob/master/R/gt.R#L165

So even Posit, the maintainers of gt and pkgdown don't seem to live render tables in their examples. To me, this seems like an inherent limitation of the pkgdown system.

In contrast, altdoc converts the man pages to Quarto files and can render the code entirely, which explains why the man pages on the tinytable website displays tables properly.

Since I do not personally use pkgdown, and given that I don't see a clear path forward, I will close this issue. I would happily review a pull request or consider implementing a solution if someone can propose very specific code changes that can fix this.

Sorry there isn't a more satisfactory resolution.

[friendly]

Hi Vincent Thanks so much for following up on this. I hadn’t considered altdoc before, but will take a closer look. best, -Michael

…

--- Michael Friendly Email: friendly AT yorku DOT ca Professor, Psychology Dept York University 4700 Keele Street Web: http://www.datavis.ca<http://www.datavis.ca/> | @datavisfriendly.bsky.social Toronto, ONT M3J 1P3 CANADA From: Vincent Arel-Bundock ***@***.***> Sent: January 23, 2026 7:38 AM To: vincentarelbundock/tinytable ***@***.***> Cc: Michael L Friendly ***@***.***>; Author ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [vincentarelbundock/tinytable] `pkgdown` (Issue #624) [Image removed by sender.]vincentarelbundock left a comment (vincentarelbundock/tinytable#624)<#624 (comment)> More info: The pkgdown website for gt shows tables, but they are actually PNG tables with hard-coded links. https://github.com/rstudio/gt/blob/master/R/gt.R#L165 So even Posit, the maintainers of gt and pkgdown don't seem to live render tables in their examples. To me, this seems like an inherent limitation of the pkgdown system. In contrast, altdoc<https://altdoc.etiennebacher.com/#/> converts the man pages to Quarto files and can render the code entirely, which explains why the man pages on the tinytable website<https://vincentarelbundock.github.io/tinytable/man/tt.html> displays tables properly. Since I do not personally use pkgdown, and given that I don't see a clear path forward, I will close this issue. I would happily review a pull request or consider implementing a solution if someone can propose very specific code changes that can fix this. Sorry there isn't a more satisfactory resolution. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#624 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AADPNIPBAL7EWPVOKHS6JO34III37AVCNFSM6AAAAACPWP6ZYSVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTOOJQGA2TEMZXGA>. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[vincentarelbundock]

Hi Vincent

Thanks so much for following up on this. I hadn’t considered altdoc before, but will take a closer look.

best,
-Michael

It's definitely less "robust" and a bit flakier than pkgdown. But Etienne is quite responsive, and I can sometimes look at issues too if they are interesting/easy.