R: title (or comment)

Question

I want to put a comment under the table printed by xtable. . I decided that the best option would be to use the "caption" option: xtable(tablename, caption="This is a caption") . But it somehow enters "Table 1" automatically, so the output looks like this:

Table 1: This is an inscription.

Is there a way to suppress this or any easier way to put a comment simply as an additional last line in the table?

Answer 1

Firstly, some layout data:

 x <- sample(LETTERS, 5, replace = TRUE) y <- sample(LETTERS, 5, replace = TRUE) z <- table(x, y) 

Now here are some awkward solutions using the print.xtable add.to.row argument.

 comment <- list() comment$pos <- list() comment$pos[[1]] <- c(nrow(z)) comment$command <- c(paste("\\hline \n", # we`ll replace all default hlines with this and the ones below "your footnote, caption or whatever. \n", sep = "")) print(xtable(z), add.to.row = comment, hline.after = c(-1, 0)) # indicates rows that will contain hlines (the last one was defined up there) 

If you want your comment to be placed before the data, use comment$pos[[1]] <- c(0) instead of comment$pos[[1]] <- c(nrow(z)) and configure hline.after .

Here is my conclusion:

 % latex table generated in R 2.14.1 by xtable 1.7-0 package % Mon Feb 20 02:17:58 2012 \begin{table}[ht] \begin{center} \begin{tabular}{rrrrr} \hline & B & C & P & V \\ \hline A & 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \\ D & 1 & 0 & 0 & 0 \\ I & 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \\ P & 0 & 0 & 1 & 0 \\ Z & 0 & 1 & 0 & 0 \\ \hline your footnote, caption or whatever. \end{tabular} \end{center} \end{table} xtable 1.7-0 package % latex table generated in R 2.14.1 by xtable 1.7-0 package % Mon Feb 20 02:17:58 2012 \begin{table}[ht] \begin{center} \begin{tabular}{rrrrr} \hline & B & C & P & V \\ \hline A & 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \\ D & 1 & 0 & 0 & 0 \\ I & 0 & 0 & 0 & 1 \\ P & 0 & 0 & 1 & 0 \\ Z & 0 & 1 & 0 & 0 \\ \hline your footnote, caption or whatever. \end{tabular} \end{center} \end{table} 

Answer 2

If you are using RMarkdown, add it to the header:

 --- (other configs here, like title, author, etc.) header-includes: - \usepackage{caption} - \captionsetup{labelformat=empty} --- 

Edit:

After talking with xxtable package maintainer David (it was very affordable), he came up with this solution, which I am posting below:

I think this can be solved with xtableList. Create some data and convert the data frame in xtableList.

 set.seed(230) DF <- data.frame(a = rnorm(5), b = rnorm(5), c = rnorm(5)) library(xtable) dfList <- list(DF) attr(dfList, "message") <- c("A caption", "Which can have multiple lines") 

Then xtable produces the following:

 print(xtableList(dfList)) ## % latex table generated in R 3.2.5 by xtable 1.8-3 package ## % Sat Jul 09 21:52:53 2016 ## \begin{table}[ht] ## \centering ## \begin{tabular}{rrrr} ## \hline ## & a & b & c \\ ## \hline ## 1 & -0.23 & 0.04 & 1.34 \\ ## 2 & 0.10 & 0.57 & -1.62 \\ ## 3 & 0.33 & -0.14 & 0.83 \\ ## 4 & 0.36 & -0.75 & 0.20 \\ ## 5 & 0.44 & 0.13 & -0.49 \\ ## \hline ## \multicolumn{4}{l}{A caption}\\ ## ## \multicolumn{4}{l}{Which can have multiple lines}\\ ## \end{tabular} ## \end{table} 

To deal with long titles, you need to split the string:

 attr(dfList, "message") <- c("A caption", "Which can have", "multiple lines") 

Answer 3

This basically repeats this answer, but this is the most programmatic way to do this with xtable . This is ugly, mainly because I hate the way xtable add.to.row .

Sample data:

 set.seed(230) DF <- data.frame(a = rnorm(5), b = rnorm(5), c = rnorm(5)) #of course, we can pass this directly below; I'm just saving # horizontal space for this answer comm <- paste0("\\hline \n \\multicolumn{4}{l}", "{\\scriptsize{Check out these random numbers!}} \n") print.xtable(xtable(DF, caption = "Describe the table"), #adjusting hline.after so that our comment appears # "outside" the table, as defined by its border hline.after=c(-1, 0), #**NOTE: the first argument to add.to.row must be # a list -- don't ask me why since it strikes me as odd** add.to.row = list(pos = list(5), command = comm)) why since it strikes me as odd ** set.seed(230) DF <- data.frame(a = rnorm(5), b = rnorm(5), c = rnorm(5)) #of course, we can pass this directly below; I'm just saving # horizontal space for this answer comm <- paste0("\\hline \n \\multicolumn{4}{l}", "{\\scriptsize{Check out these random numbers!}} \n") print.xtable(xtable(DF, caption = "Describe the table"), #adjusting hline.after so that our comment appears # "outside" the table, as defined by its border hline.after=c(-1, 0), #**NOTE: the first argument to add.to.row must be # a list -- don't ask me why since it strikes me as odd** add.to.row = list(pos = list(5), command = comm)) 

Here is the TeX output:

 % latex table generated in R 3.2.4 by xtable 1.8-2 package % Mon May 23 18:25:14 2016 \begin{table}[ht] \centering \begin{tabular}{rrrr} \hline & a & b & c \\ \hline 1 & -0.23 & 0.04 & 1.34 \\ 2 & 0.10 & 0.57 & -1.62 \\ 3 & 0.33 & -0.14 & 0.83 \\ 4 & 0.36 & -0.75 & 0.20 \\ 5 & 0.44 & 0.13 & -0.49 \\ \hline \multicolumn{4}{l}{\scriptsize{Check out these random numbers!}} \end{tabular} \caption{Describe the table} \end{table} 

And the result is .pdf if I wrap it with \documentclass{article} , \begin{document} and \end{document} :

Of course, there are many more bells and whistles to add to the readiness for publication, but this is the point, and you should be well on your way.