How to write (bullet) lists in a table using rmarkdown and pandoc

Question

I am looking to create a table in a PDF document using rmarkdown, knitr and pander. The table should be nearly identical to Table 1 shown below, except the asterisks should be bullets. Is this at all possible using only the R libraries listed above?

Here is my code to produce the PDF document (and thus the table above):

---
title: "xxx"
author: "xxx"
date: "xxx"
output:
  word_document: default
  pdf_document:
    fig_height: 4
    fig_width: 10
    highlight: tango
geometry: margin=3cm
---

```{r global_options, include=FALSE, echo=FALSE}
require(knitr)
opts_chunk$set(fig.width=8, fig.height=4, fig.path='figs/', dpi=500,
               echo=FALSE, warning=FALSE, message=FALSE, results='hide')
```

```{r pandoc_options, include=FALSE, echo=FALSE}
require(pander)
panderOptions('digits', 3)
panderOptions('round', 3)
panderOptions('keep.trailing.zeros', TRUE)
panderOptions('keep.line.breaks', TRUE)
```

```{r concepts, echo=FALSE}
mytable = data.frame(Concept = c("Decoded", "XXX"), 
                     Description = c(" 
                                     \\\n
                                     \\\n * Founded in 2011 
                                     \\\n * * Offers workshops to take people from zero skills and knowledge in programming through to coding a multi-platform app using HTML, CSS and Javascript in a single day 
                                     \\\n * * Rave reviews", "XXX"), 
                     Website = c("http://decoded.com/uk/","XXX"))

```

``` {r concepts_descriptions, results = 'asis'}
pandoc.table(mytable, style = "multiline", justify = "left", caption = "Concepts and Descriptions")
```

EDIT @Roman thanks for that - however if I simply substitute, I get the following not-so-beautiful table ("period" bullets, poor formatting) ... The most important thing for me now is the formatting that comes with lists. Thanks!

Rockribbed

In theory, you could replace the asterix with a character of a bullet (•). You can do that with a simple gsub call -- gsub("\\*", "•", "* a list item"). – Bombe

My understanding is that pandoc uses LaTeX as an intermediat format. Have you tried replacing the * with the LaTeX bullet character ($\bullet$)? (Sorry I don't have time to check if this works just now.) The use of cdot in this SO question may be useful. – Condottiere

Answer 1

The default multiline style table does not support arbitrary block elements inside of the cells, but the grid tables does. So this is possible, just make sure:

• you use grid style
• align the cell to the left
• use hard line breaks at the end of the list elements and enable keep.line.break

Quick demo:

mytable = data.frame(
    Concept     = c("Decoded", "XXX"),
    Description = c("* Founded in 2011\ \n* Offers workshops to take people from zero skills and knowledge in programming through to coding a multi-platform app using HTML, CSS and Javascript in a single day", "XXX"),
    Website     = c("http://decoded.com/uk/","XXX"))

pander::pander(mytable, keep.line.breaks = TRUE, style = 'grid', justify = 'left')

Resulting in a nicely formatted HTML list via pandoc:

<table>
<colgroup>
<col width="13%" />
<col width="43%" />
<col width="30%" />
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr class="header">
<th align="left">Concept</th>
<th align="left">Description</th>
<th align="left">Website</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td align="left">Decoded</td>
<td align="left">* Founded in 2011 * Offers workshops to take people from zero skills and knowledge in programming through to coding a multi-platform app using HTML, CSS and Javascript in a single day</td>
<td align="left">http://decoded.com/uk/</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td align="left">XXX</td>
<td align="left">XXX</td>
<td align="left">XXX</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

But works with PDF as well:

Grith