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Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

tabular 0.1.1

Breaking changes

  • col_spec() gained a single indent argument (an integer for a fixed level on every body row, or a column name for per-row depth); the previous indent_by argument and the usage = "indent" value were removed in favour of it. An explicit indent on a group_display = "header_row" host now suppresses the section auto-indent, yielding a single rather than double indent.
  • paginate() removed the no-op panels = "auto"; panels is now a positive integer.

Minor improvements and bug fixes

  • col_spec() now warns when group_display or group_skip is set on a non-group column (the knobs are inert unless usage = "group").
  • cols() / cols_apply() now restore a column’s visibility and reset group_display on a later call, and merge every column attribute field-completely (previously a default value could not be merged back and some fields could be dropped).
  • preset()’s decimal_metrics knob gained "afm" (now the default), making decimal alignment width-exact in proportional fonts via the bundled font metrics; Markdown output keeps character padding.

tabular 0.1.0

First release. tabular renders pre-summarised clinical tables and listings to RTF, LaTeX, HTML, PDF, and DOCX from one immutable verb pipeline, with no external Java or SAS dependency. This initial CRAN version consolidates the entire pre-release development cycle: every feature and bug fix below was designed, implemented, and tested before this first release.

Scope. This release covers tables and listings. Figure (graph) output is not yet supported and is the focus of the next release.

Build pipeline

  • tabular() takes a pre-summarised wide data frame (one input row is one display row) plus multi-line titles and footnotes.
  • cols() / col_spec() set per-column usage, label, format, width, alignment (including decimal alignment via bundled font metrics), visibility, NA text, per-row indent (indent_by), and group display. cols() takes a .default fallback col_spec(), and cols_apply() applies one col_spec() to many columns (by name or predicate), resolving a {.name} token in a label to each matched column.
  • headers() builds multi-level column-header bands with passthrough leaves; sort_rows() sorts on hidden numeric keys; subgroup() partitions with a {col} banner template and optional per-page big_n.
  • style() applies predicate-targeted cell styling through the cells_*() location helpers; preset() / set_preset() / get_preset() set cosmetic defaults (fonts, colours, rules, padding, alignment, page chrome) per table or per session, with reusable house styles via style_template().
  • footnote() attaches auto-numbered footnotes (letters, numbers, or symbols) to any cell, column header, or title, deduped by id and byte-identical across backends.
  • paginate() does group-aware pagination with an auto-computed per-page row budget; emit() writes the chosen backend (creating parent directories with create_dir), and as_grid() resolves the grid without I/O.

Rendering

  • Native emission to RTF, LaTeX, HTML, PDF (via LaTeX), and DOCX from a single resolved grid; output is verified by per-backend byte snapshots and a cross-backend CDISC-pilot qualification (inst/qualification/).
  • Inline markup via md() and html().
  • Glue-style {expr} interpolation in static labels, titles, footnotes, and header band labels, evaluated in the calling environment at build time.
  • Significant-whitespace preservation across all backends (preset(whitespace = "preserve"), the default).
  • check_latex() reports LaTeX-package availability for PDF output and prints the exact tlmgr_install() remedy for anything missing — including a CTAN-mirror pin (tinytex::tlmgr_repo("auto")) when an install stalls behind the redirecting default mirror (commonly on Windows); check_fonts() does the same for fonts, per backend.

Data

  • Bundled synthetic CDISC-pilot demo data (cdisc_saf_demo, cdisc_saf_ae, cdisc_saf_aesocpt, cdisc_saf_vital, cdisc_eff_resp, the BigN frames cdisc_saf_n / cdisc_eff_n, and the long-format ARD companions cdisc_saf_demo_ard / cdisc_saf_aesocpt_ard) for examples and vignettes.