38.6 Descriptive Tables

Export APA theme

data("mtcars")

library(flextable)
theme_apa(flextable(mtcars[1:5,1:5]))

Export to Latex

print(xtable::xtable(mtcars, type = "latex"),
      file = file.path(getwd(), "output", "mtcars_xtable.tex"))

# American Economic Review style
stargazer::stargazer(
    mtcars,
    title = "Testing",
    style = "aer",
    out = file.path(getwd(), "output", "mtcars_stargazer.tex")
)

# other styles include
# Administrative Science Quarterly
# Quarterly Journal of Economics

However, the above codes do not play well with notes. Hence, I create my own custom code that follows the AMA guidelines

ama_tbl <- function(data, caption, label, note, output_path) {
  library(tidyverse)
  library(xtable)
  # Function to determine column alignment
  get_column_alignment <- function(data) {
    # Start with the alignment for the header row
    alignment <- c("l", "l")
    
    # Check each column
    for (col in seq_len(ncol(data))[-1]) {
      if (is.numeric(data[[col]])) {
        alignment <- c(alignment, "r")  # Right alignment for numbers
      } else {
        alignment <- c(alignment, "c")  # Center alignment for other data
      }
    }
    
    return(alignment)
  }
  
  data %>%
    # bold + left align first column 
    rename_with(~paste("\\multicolumn{1}{l}{\\textbf{", ., "}}"), 1) %>% 
    # bold + center align all other columns
    `colnames<-`(ifelse(colnames(.) != colnames(.)[1],
                        paste("\\multicolumn{1}{c}{\\textbf{", colnames(.), "}}"),
                        colnames(.))) %>% 
    
    xtable(caption = caption,
           label = label,
           align = get_column_alignment(data),
           auto = TRUE) %>%
    print(
      include.rownames = FALSE,
      caption.placement = "top",
      
      hline.after=c(-1, 0),
      
       # p{0.9\linewidth} sets the width of the column to 90% of the line width, and the @{} removes any extra padding around the cell.
      
      add.to.row = list(pos = list(nrow(data)), # Add at the bottom of the table
                        command = c(paste0("\\hline \n \\multicolumn{",ncol(data), "}{l} {", "\n \\begin{tabular}{@{}p{0.9\\linewidth}@{}} \n","Note: ", note, "\n \\end{tabular}  } \n"))), # Add your note here
      
      # make sure your heading is untouched (because you manually change it above)
      sanitize.colnames.function = identity,
      
      # place a the top of the page
      table.placement = "h",
      
      file = output_path
    )
}

ama_tbl(
    mtcars,
    caption     = "This is caption",
    label       = "tab:this_is_label",
    note        = "this is note",
    output_path = file.path(getwd(), "output", "mtcars_custom_ama.tex")
)