Manipulation of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint Documents

Access and manipulate 'Microsoft Word' and 'Microsoft PowerPoint' documents from R. The package focuses on tabular and graphical reporting from R; it also provides two functions that let users get document content into data objects. A set of functions lets add and remove images, tables and paragraphs of text in new or existing documents. When working with 'PowerPoint' presentations, slides can be added or removed; shapes inside slides can also be added or removed. When working with 'Word' documents, a cursor can be used to help insert or delete content at a specific location in the document. The package does not require any installation of Microsoft products to be able to write Microsoft files.

The officer package lets R users manipulate Word (.docx) and PowerPoint (*.pptx) documents. In short, one can add images, tables and text into documents from R. An initial document can be provided; contents, styles and properties of the original document will then be available.

This package is close to ReporteRs as it produces Word and PowerPoint files but it is faster, does not require rJava and is easier to maintain.

The read_docx() function will read an initial Word document (an empty one by default) and lets you modify its content later.

The package provides functions to add R outputs into a Word document:

• images: produce your plot in png or emf files and add them into the document, as a whole paragraph or inside a paragraph.
• tables: add data.frames as tables, format is defined by the associated Word table style.
• text: add text as paragraphs or inside an existing paragraph, format is defined by the associated Word paragraph and text styles.
• field codes: add Word field codes inside paragraphs. Field codes is an old feature of MS Word to create calculated elements such as tables of contents, automatic numbering and hyperlinks.

In a Word document, one can use cursor functions to reach the beginning or end of a document, or a particular paragraph containing a given text. This cursor concept has been implemented to make the post processing of files easier.

File generation is performed with the print function.

import Word document in a data.frame

The function docx_summary() reads and imports content of a Word document into a data.frame. The function handles paragraphs, tables and section breaks.

PowerPoint documents

The function read_pptx() will read an initial PowerPoint document (an empty one by default) and let you modify its content later.

The package provides functions to add R outputs into existing or new PowerPoint slides:

• images: produce your plot in png or emf files and add them in a slide.
• tables: add data.frames as tables, format is defined by the associated PowerPoint table style.
• text: add text as paragraphs or inside an existing paragraph, format is defined in the corresponding layout of the slide.

In a PowerPoint document, one can set a slide as selected and reach a particular shape (and remove it or add text).

File generation is performed with the print() function.

import PowerPoint document in a data.frame

The pptx_summary() function reads and imports content of a PowerPoint document into a tibble object. The function handles paragraphs, tables and images.

Extensions

Tables and package flextable

The package flextable brings a full API to produce nice tables and use them with officer. Tables can be written in PowerPoint documents and Word documents. An option is available to render flextables in rmarkdown (HTML and Word outputs).

Vector graphics with package rvg

The package rvg brings an API to produce nice vector graphics that can be embedded in PowerPoint documents or Excel workbooks with officer.

Native office charts with package mschart

The package mschart combined with officer can produce native office charts in PowerPoint and Word documents.

Installation

You can get the development version from GitHub:

devtools::install_github("davidgohel/officer")

Or the latest version on CRAN:

install.packages("officer")

Resources

Online documentation

The help pages are located at https://davidgohel.github.io/officer/.

Getting help

This project is developed and maintained on my own time. In order to help me to maintain the package, do not send me private emails if you only have questions about how to use the package. Instead, visit Stack Overflow’s officer tag and post your question there. I usually read them and answer when possible.

Contributing to the package

Code of Conduct

Anyone getting involved in this package agrees to our Code of Conduct.

Bug reports

When you file a bug report, please spend some time making it easy for me to follow and reproduce. The more time you spend on making the bug report coherent, the more time I can dedicate to investigate the bug as opposed to the bug report.

Contributing to the package development

A great way to start is to contribute an example or improve the documentation.

If you want to submit a Pull Request to integrate functions of yours, please provide:

• the new function(s) with code and roxygen tags (with examples)
• a new section in the appropriate vignette that describes how to use the new function
• add corresponding tests in directory tests/testthat.

By using rhub (run rhub::check_for_cran()), you will see if everything is ok. When submitted, the PR will be evaluated automatically on travis and appveyor and you will be able to see if something broke.