Have you ever searched for a lightweight yet visually appealing theme for your R Markdown documents? Well, your search ends here! With the powerful rmarkdown package, creating stunning HTML documents is a breeze. Let’s embark on a journey to beautify your documents with the prettydoc engine!

The Magic of Themes for R Markdown

The html_document engine, part of the rmarkdown package, leverages the Bootswatch theme library. By including some essential meta-information in the header of your R Markdown file, you can easily enhance the appearance of your document.

For instance, taking the example below:

yaml
---
title: Nineteen Years Later
author: Harry Potter
date: July 31, 2016
output: 
  rmarkdown::html_document:
    theme: lumen
---

In this example, we define the title, author, date, and specify our desired theme (lumen). However, this comes with a trade-off of a larger file size (approx. 700KB) because the whole Bootstrap library is included.

Discovering the prettydoc Engine

Now to the exciting part! If you’re eager to have both lightweight and aesthetically pleasing outputs, the prettydoc package is your go-to solution. By using the html_pretty engine, you can transform your R Markdown documents into beautifully crafted HTML pages without the heft.

Switching to prettydoc is as simple as replacing the output engine in your YAML header:

yaml
---
title: Nineteen Years Later
author: Harry Potter
date: July 31, 2016
output: 
  prettydoc::html_pretty:
    theme: cayman
    highlight: github
---

Here, we’ve selected the ‘cayman’ theme and set the syntax highlighter to ‘github’.

Step-by-Step Guide to Using prettydoc

To create documents from prettydoc templates in RStudio, follow these steps:

• Step 1: Click the New File button and choose R Markdown.
• Step 2: In the From Template tab, select one of the built-in templates.

Options and Themes Available

The options for the html_pretty engine mirror that of the default html_document with a few exceptions:

1. Themes: Current options include:
   • cayman
   • tactile
   • architect
   • leonids
   • hpstr
2. Highlight Options: Supports ‘github’ and ‘vignette’.
3. Math Rendering: Choose between MathJax and KaTeX. KaTeX is useful for offline documents.
4. Unavailable Options: Parameters like code_folding, code_download, and toc_float are not applicable.

Offline Math Expressions

If you need offline support for math expressions, you can easily use KaTeX by adding a simple line in your YAML header:

yaml
---
title: Nineteen Years Later
author: Harry Potter
date: July 31, 2016
output: 
  prettydoc::html_pretty:
    theme: cayman
    highlight: github
    math: katex
---

This addition ensures that all necessary resource files are included for offline viewing, resulting in slightly larger HTML documents (around 800KB).

Troubleshooting Common Issues

If you encounter any issues, here are some troubleshooting tips:

• Ensure that the prettydoc package is properly installed and updated.
• Check for correct syntax in your YAML header.
• If themes are not rendering as expected, verify your theme names against the available options.

For more insights, updates, or to collaborate on AI development projects, stay connected with fxis.ai.

Explore Related Projects

Enhance your experience by exploring these related projects:

• Tufte – provides Tufte style for R Markdown.
• BiocStyle – standard styles for Bioconductor documents.
• rmdformats – includes extra features for R Markdown documents.
• markdowntemplates – a collection of alternative templates.
• prettyjekyll – uses prettydoc to convert R Markdown documents to Jekyll Markdown.

Conclusion

With these handy tools and tips, your R Markdown documents can look both pretty and professional. At fxis.ai, we believe that such advancements are crucial for the future of AI, as they enable more comprehensive and effective solutions. Our team is continually exploring new methodologies to push the envelope in artificial intelligence, ensuring that our clients benefit from the latest technological innovations.