Formatting an ftable in R - r

Question

I have the following 3 way table I created in R.
with(dataset, ftable(xtabs(count ~ dos + sex + edu)))
The output looks like
edu high low medium unknown
dos sex
five-to-ten-years female 247776 44916 127133 23793
male 225403 37858 147821 20383
five-years-or-less female 304851 58018 182152 33649
male 253977 55720 193621 28972
more-than-ten-years female 709303 452605 539403 165675
male 629162 309193 689299 121336
native-born female 1988476 1456792 2094297 502153
male 1411509 1197395 2790522 395953
unknown female 57974 75480 73204 593141
male 40176 57786 93108 605542
I want to rename the variables and format the table so that I can include it in a report. I know that I can use dnn to rename the variables, but are there any other recommendations to rename the variables? And to format the table (similar to using kable)?

Answer 1

You could convert the output to a text matrix using the following function, after which you can style with kable however you choose:
ftab_to_matrix <- function(ft)
{
row_vars <- attr(ft, "row.vars")
for(i in seq_along(row_vars)){
row_vars[[i]] <- c(names(row_vars[i]), row_vars[[i]])}
rowvar_widths <- sapply(row_vars, function(x) max(nchar(x))) + 1
col_vars <- attr(ft, "col.vars")
rowvar_widths <- c(1, cumsum(c(rowvar_widths, max(nchar(names(col_vars))))))
ft_text <- capture.output(print(ft))
row_cols <- sapply(seq_along(rowvar_widths)[-1], function(x)
substr(ft_text, rowvar_widths[x - 1], rowvar_widths[x]))
ft_text <- substr(ft_text, rowvar_widths[length(rowvar_widths)] + 2, 100)
ft_breaks <- c(1, cumsum(lapply(strsplit(ft_text[length(ft_text)], "\\d "),
function(x) nchar(x) + 2)[[1]]))
col_cols <- sapply(seq_along(ft_breaks)[-1], function(x)
substr(ft_text, ft_breaks[x - 1], ft_breaks[x]))
trimws(cbind(row_cols, col_cols))
}
So, for example, using my example data from your last question, you could do something like:
my_tab <- with(`3waydata`, ftable(xtabs(count ~ duration + sex + education)))
as_image(kable_styling(kable(ftab_to_df(my_tab))), file = "kable.png")

Answer 2

Might have been easier had you given the full picture when you asked your first question... You could use gt to make fancy tables for reports. This is an edited version more fully demonstrating some capabilities.
library(dplyr)
library(gt)
way3data <- data %>%
group_by(duration, education, sex) %>%
summarise(count = sum(number)) %>%
ungroup
# Reorder with select and Titlecase with stringr
longer <- tidyr::pivot_wider(way3data,
values_from = count,
names_from = "education") %>%
select(duration, sex, high, medium, low, unknown) %>%
rename_with(stringr::str_to_title)
# Demonstrating some of the features of gt
# obviously could have done some of this
# to the original dataframe
myresults <- longer %>%
group_by(Duration) %>%
gt(rowname_col = "Sex") %>%
row_group_order(
groups = c("native-born",
"more-than-ten-years",
"five-to-ten-years",
"five-years-or-less",
"unknown")
) %>%
tab_spanner(label = "Education",
columns = matches("High|Low|Medium|Unknown")) %>%
tab_stubhead(label = "Duration or something") %>%
tab_style(
style = cell_text(style = "oblique", weight = "bold"),
locations = cells_row_groups()) %>%
tab_style(
style = cell_text(align = "right", style = "italic", weight = "bold"),
locations = cells_column_labels(
columns = vars(High, Low, Medium, Unknown)
)) %>%
tab_style(
style = cell_text(align = "right", weight = "bold"),
locations = cells_stub()) %>%
tab_header(
title = "Fancy table of counts with Duration, Education and Gender") %>%
tab_source_note(md("More information is available at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62284264."))
# myresults
# Can save in other formats including .rtf
myresults %>%
gtsave(
"tab_1.png", expand = 10
)
You can read about all the formatting choices here
Data compliments of Allan
set.seed(69)
data <- data.frame(education = sample(c("high","low","medium","unknown"), 600, T),
sex = rep(c("Male", "Female"), 300),
duration = sample(c("unknown", "native-born",
"five-years-or-less", "five-to-ten-years",
"more-than-ten-years"), 600, T),
number = rpois(600, 10))