Packages

For this post, we need to load the following library:

library(kableExtra)

Dataset

We create a simple dataset with Nobel Prizes (2020). We use 3 columns: name, field and image.

df = data.frame(name = c("E. Charpentier","R. Penrose", "L. Glück", "M. Houghton"),
                field = c("Chemistry", "Physics", "Litterature", "Medicine"),
                image = "" # keep it empty
                )

Add images

The kableExtra relies on the kable package and allows the use of the %>% (pipe) symbole. The main function is named kbl() and is similar to kable().

In order to add images in column, we need to use the column_spec() function with the image argument. Also, to change dimensions of images, we use the spec_image() function into the image arg.

# we use images from the internet, but it works exactly the same
# for images locally stored on your computer!
path_images = c("https://www.nobelprize.org/images/charpentier-111763-landscape-mini-2x.jpg",
                "https://www.nobelprize.org/images/penrose-111758-landscape-mini-2x.jpg",
                "https://www.nobelprize.org/images/gluck-111767-landscape-mini-2x.jpg",
                "https://www.nobelprize.org/images/houghton-111770-landscape-mini-2x.jpg")

df %>%
  kbl(booktabs = T, align = "c") %>%
  kable_styling() %>%
  kable_paper(full_width = T) %>%
  column_spec(3, image = spec_image(path_images, 280, 200) # dimensions of the images
              )

name	field	image
E. Charpentier	Chemistry
R. Penrose	Physics
L. Glück	Litterature
M. Houghton	Medicine

Add links

The row_spec() and column_spec() functions have a color and background arguments that will change the colors, either of the background or the cell content.

urls = c("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuelle_Charpentier",
         "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose",
         "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Glück",
         "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Houghton")

df %>%
  kbl(booktabs = T, align = "c") %>%
  kable_styling() %>%
  kable_paper(full_width = T) %>%
  column_spec(1, link = urls)

name	field	image
E. Charpentier	Chemistry
R. Penrose	Physics
L. Glück	Litterature
M. Houghton	Medicine

Combine images and links

The color and background argument can also takes a vector of colors:

path_images = c("https://www.nobelprize.org/images/charpentier-111763-landscape-mini-2x.jpg",
                "https://www.nobelprize.org/images/penrose-111758-landscape-mini-2x.jpg",
                "https://www.nobelprize.org/images/gluck-111767-landscape-mini-2x.jpg",
                "https://www.nobelprize.org/images/houghton-111770-landscape-mini-2x.jpg")

urls = c("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuelle_Charpentier",
         "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose",
         "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Glück",
         "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Houghton")

df %>%
  kbl(booktabs = T, align = "c") %>%
  kable_styling() %>%
  kable_material(c("striped", "hover", "condensed", "responsive")) %>%
  column_spec(1, link = urls, bold=TRUE) %>%
  column_spec(1, link = urls, bold=TRUE) %>%
  column_spec(3, image = spec_image(path_images, 280, 200))

name	field	image
E. Charpentier	Chemistry
R. Penrose	Physics
L. Glück	Litterature
M. Houghton	Medicine

Conclusion

This post explained how to add images and links in a table using the kableExtra library. For more of this package, see the dedicated section or the table section.

Related chart types

Line plot

Area

Stacked area

Streamchart

Time Series

Contact

This document is a work by Yan Holtz. Any feedback is highly encouraged. You can fill an issue on Github, drop me a message on Twitter, or send an email pasting yan.holtz.data with gmail.com.

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