create_aftable: Create An 'aftable' Object
In aftables: Create Spreadsheet Publications Following Best Practice

create_aftable

R Documentation

Create An 'aftable' Object

Description

Create a new aftable-class object, which is a special data.frame that contains all the information needed in your output spreadsheet. In turn, the object created by this function can be used to populate an 'openxlsx' Workbook-class object with the function generate_workbook.

Usage

create_aftable(
  tab_titles,
  sheet_types = c("cover", "contents", "notes", "tables"),
  sheet_titles,
  blank_cells = NA_character_,
  sources = NA_character_,
  custom_rows = list(NA_character_),
  tables
)

Arguments

`tab_titles`	Required character vector, one value per sheet. Each title will appear literally on each tab of the final spreadsheet output. Keep brief. Letters and numbers only; do not start with a number; use underscores for spaces. For example: 'Cover', 'Contents', 'Notes', 'Table_1'. Will be corrected automatically unless there's an error.
`sheet_types`	Required character vector, one value per sheet. Sheets that don't contain publication tables ('meta' sheets) should be of type 'contents', 'cover' or 'notes'. Sheets that contain statistical tables of data are type 'tables'.
`sheet_titles`	Required character vector, one value per sheet. The main title for each sheet, which will appear in cell A1 (top-left corner).
`blank_cells`	Optional character vector, one value per sheet. A short sentence to explain the reason for any blank cells in the sheet. Supply as `NA_character_` if empty. Most likely to be used with sheet type 'tables'.
`sources`	Optional character vector, one value per sheet. The origin of the data for a given sheet. Supply as `NA_character_` if empty. To be used with sheet type 'tables'.
`custom_rows`	Optional list of character vectors. One list element per sheet, one character vector element per row of pre-table metadata. Supply a list element as `NA_character_` if empty. To be used with sheet type 'tables', but can also be used for sheet types 'contents' and 'notes'.
`tables`	Required list of data.frames (though the cover sheet may be supplied as a list), one per sheet. See details.

Details

How to supply data to the 'tables' argument

Formats for the elements collected as a list and passed to the 'tables' argument, depending on the sheet type.

Sheet type 'cover': either (a) a list where each element name is a section header and each element's content is a character vector whose elements will make up separate rows of that section (recommended), or (b) a data.frame with one row per subsection, with one column for section titles and one column for corresponding for that section's body text. For example, you may have a section with the title 'Contact details' that contains an email address and telephone number. You can use line breaks (i.e. '\n') to separate text into paragraphs.
Sheet type 'contents': one row per sheet, two columns suggested at least (named 'Tab title' and 'Worksheet title').
Sheet type 'notes': one row per note, two columns suggested (named 'Note number', 'Note text'), where notes are in the form '[note 1]'.
Sheet type 'tables': a tidy, rectangular data.frame containing the data to be published. It's the user's responsibility to add notes in the form '[note 1]' to column headers, or in a special 'Notes' row.

How to supply hyperlinks

You can provide text in Markdown link syntax (e.g. '[GOV.UK](https://www.gov.uk)', adding 'mailto:' before an email address) and the containing cell will be rendered as a hyperlink in the output spreadsheet. Note that whole cells will become hyperlinks; there is no support for selected words in a sentence to be rendered as a hyperlink.

Hyperlinks can be supplied in the character strings to three arguments:

To the 'tables' argument for sheet type 'cover' only. It's recommended to supply the cover information as a list rather than a data.frame, which will allow you to make specific rows within a section (e.g. 'contact us') into hyperlinks.
To the 'custom_rows' argument for sheets of type 'contents, 'notes' and 'tables'.
To the 'source' argument for sheets of type 'table' only.

Value

An object with classes 'aftable', 'tbl' and 'data.frame'.

Examples

# Prepare some demo tables of information

set.seed(1066)

cover_list <- list(
  "Section 1" = c("First row of Section 1.", "Second row of Section 1."),
  "Section 2" = "The only row of Section 2.",
  "Section 3" = c(
    "[Website](https://best-practice-and-impact.github.io/aftables/)",
    "[Email address](mailto:fake.address@aftables.com)"
  )
)

contents_df <- data.frame(
  "Sheet name" = c("Notes", "Table_1", "Table_2"),
  "Sheet title" = c(
    "Notes used in this workbook",
    "First Example Sheet",
    "Second Example Sheet"
  ),
  check.names = FALSE
)

notes_df <- data.frame(
  "Note number" = paste0("[note ", 1:2, "]"),
  "Note text" = c("First note.", "Second note."),
  check.names = FALSE
)


table_1_df <- data.frame(
  Category = LETTERS[1:10],
  "Numeric [note 1]" = 1:10,
  "Numeric suppressed" = c(1:4, "[c]", 6:9, "[x]"),
  "Numeric thousands" = abs(round(rnorm(10), 4) * 1e5),
  "Numeric decimal" = abs(round(rnorm(10), 5)),
  "Long name that means that the column width needs to be widened" = 1:10,
  Notes = c("[note 1]", rep(NA_character_, 4), "[note 2]",
            rep(NA_character_, 4)),
  check.names = FALSE
)

table_2_df <- data.frame(Category = LETTERS[1:10], Numeric = 1:10)

# Create 'aftables' object

x <- aftables::create_aftable(
  tab_titles = c("Cover", "Contents", "Notes", "Table_1", "Table_2"),
  sheet_types = c("cover", "contents", "notes", "tables", "tables"),
  sheet_titles = c(
    "The 'aftables' Demo Workbook",
    "Table of contents",
    "Notes",
    "Table 1: First Example Sheet",
    "Table 2: Second Example Sheet"
  ),
  blank_cells = c(
    rep(NA_character_, 3),
    "Blank cells indicate that there's no note in that row.",
    NA_character_
  ),
  custom_rows = list(
    NA_character_,
    NA_character_,
    "A custom row.",
    c(
      paste0("First custom row [with a hyperlink.]",
             "(https://best-practice-and-impact.github.io/aftables/)"),
      "Second custom row."
    ),
    "A custom row."
  ),
  sources = c(
    rep(NA_character_, 3),
    paste0("[The Source Material, 2024.]",#
           "(https://best-practice-and-impact.github.io/aftables/)"),
    "The Source Material, 2024."
  ),
  tables = list(cover_list, contents_df, notes_df, table_1_df, table_2_df)
)

# Test that 'aftable' is one of the object's classes
is_aftable(x)

# Look at the structure of the object
str(x, max.level = 2)

aftables documentation built on April 12, 2025, 9:16 a.m.