How do I insert a table in a two-column PDF layout?

[cbrnr]

I would like to insert a computed table into a two-column PDF layout. Consider the following example:

---
title: "Two-Column Layout with Table"
format:
  pdf:
    documentclass: article
    classoption: twocolumn
---

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
library(knitr)
```

This is some introductory text.

```{r}
kable(head(cars))
```

This produces the following error:

ERROR: 
compilation failed- error
Package longtable Error: longtable not in 1-column mode.

See the longtable package documentation for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              
                                                  
l.207 \begin{longtable}
                       []{@{}rr@{}}

It seems like the longtable LaTeX package is not compatible with multi-column layouts according to this answer, which suggests to use the xtab package instead. Is this something I can do in Quarto, or is this only possible in knitr::kable() (or is this perhaps a bug that should be reported)?

I'm using Quarto 1.6.39 on Arch Linux (but the problem also occurs on other OSs like Windows).

[mcanouil]

Quarto does not control what third party packages/libraries emit.
Quarto will only try to detect when longtable is used to replace it with longtable* to make it work in Quarto cross-reference system.

For LaTeX packages conflicts, you need to handle them independently of Quarto.
Look at knitr::kable() documentation, for instance knitr::kable(..., format = "latex", table.envir = "table*") or knitr::kable(..., format = "latex", longtable = FALSE), etc.
This is really not up to Quarto.

Sidenote: prefer YAML syntax in Quarto

```{r setup, include=FALSE}

to

```{r}
#| label: setup
#| include: false

[cbrnr]

Related issue (created Oct 2013 👀): jgm/pandoc#1023

[cscheid]

But don't you think this is also a problem for Quarto?

Yes, it is. But the solution I would like to see implemented is for the markdown-to-latex community to move to https://ctan.math.washington.edu/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/tabularray/tabularray.pdf

Quarto already does a large number of ugly workarounds for longtable because of its quirks (I know they're ugly because I wrote them :)), and I can no longer justify the decrease in overall code quality to add more such workarounds.

[cbrnr]

😆❤️ Do you see this transition happening anytime soon? Or should I try Typst instead (maybe it just works)?

[cscheid]

I think that if you ask knitr for latex output, then it emits tabular, which does work.

What you need to avoid in the emitted LaTeX code is:

• longtable (because it plays badly with LaTeX crossreferences and two-column mode)
• table (because it plays badly with LaTeX crossreferences)

[cbrnr]

Thanks @cscheid! Using knitr::kable(..., format="latex") indeed works! 🚀

[garvanwalshe]

Hi, this is great, is there an equivalent for people who aren't using R? I'm using python and jupyter.

[cderv]

@garvanwalshe it all depends on how you create your table in Python, and which format you target.

If you want to target PDF with LaTeX like in here, then you need to output a LaTeX table that avoids longtable and table as explained.

For example, Pandas has an output format to be LaTeX.
https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/reference/api/pandas.DataFrame.to_latex.html

Example:

---
title: "Reproducible Quarto Document"
format: pdf
keep-md: true
---

```{python}
#| output: asis
import pandas as pd
df = pd.DataFrame(dict(name=['Raphael', 'Donatello'],
                       age=[26, 45],
                       height=[181.23, 177.65]))
print("```{=latex}")
print(df.to_latex(index=False,
                  formatters={"name": str.upper},
                  float_format="{:.1f}".format,
))
print("```")
```

This is using tabular for LaTeX tables, so it could works. I think polars using great_tables otherwise, but outputing longtable or table environment, which is not great in quarto context.

Hope it helps

[zinc75]

13 years later, pandoc seems to have a solution for this longtable problem in twocolumns mode : jgm/pandoc@3ecd95b jgm/pandoc#1023 (comment) . However, this seems to be active only with pandoc 3.10.1 (version 3.10 included in quarto 1.10.18), and needs the use of a small lua filter that quarto could handle.