LoginSign Up
← Back to all sparks
B

basictabler

INFRA · APIS
Velocity0.0

Construct Rich Tables for Output to 'HTML'/'Excel'

github.com/cbailiss/basictabler ↗

Four years dormant, then a CRAN-notes patch — the table renderer that already did what it set out to do.

r-packagetable-renderinghtmlexcel-exportstylingmaintenance-mode
◆Current state
basictabler renders arbitrary tables to HTML, Excel and, since 2021, Word, PowerPoint and PDF. It is the simpler sibling of pivottabler by the same maintainer, and the two are deliberately kept API-compatible. The package went silent after June 2021 and returned in April 2025 with 1.0.4, a release that exists only to clear CRAN notes — 48 characters of release note for four years of elapsed time.
◆Where it's heading
The pre-silence arc is a package converging on its sibling. 0.3.0 switched header cells to th elements specifically because pivottabler already did; 1.0.0 changed findCells() matching semantics for the same reason, and introduced value-driven styling; 1.0.2 outsourced Word, PowerPoint and PDF output to flextabler rather than implementing them. Each move either aligned with pivottabler or delegated to someone else, which is how a package reaches a state where four years pass without a feature.
◆Prediction
Nothing in the feed suggests feature work resuming; expect maintenance releases only, arriving when CRAN checks or a change in pivottabler force one.

◆Recent moves

  1. 1y ago

    CRAN note fixes end a four-year silence

    The first release in nearly four years, and it does nothing a user would notice: small changes in response to CRAN notes. Its sibling pivottabler shipped its own version 83 seconds later the same afternoon, which is what this release really marks — a maintainer keeping both packages on CRAN.

    View source ↗
  2. 5y ago

    v1.0.2: New export options

    Output formats widen to Word, PowerPoint and PDF by handing the work to the flextabler package rather than implementing writers in-house — consistent with this package's habit of delegating or aligning rather than building. Per-cell border formatting also gets easier.

    View source ↗
  3. 5y ago

    v1.0.1: Bug fix for export to Excel

    Fixes silent data loss in Excel export: cells with a formatted value but a NULL raw value came out blank, which hit exactly the pivottabler headings for totals and multi-calculation tables. The new useFormattedValueIfRawValueIsNull parameter defaults to the fixed behaviour with an opt-out.

    View source ↗
  4. 5y ago

    Cell selection and styling reworked, and aligned with pivottabler

    ⚡ SPARK

    The release that both reworked how cells are selected and styled and deliberately broke defaults to match pivottabler. Everything after it is delegation and maintenance, which makes this the point where the package reached the shape it still has.

    View source ↗
  5. 6y ago

    v0.3.1 Compatibility Fix

    A maintenance release absorbing R 4.0.0's change to the stringsAsFactors default in data.frame(). Upstream churn, no package decision.

    View source ↗
  6. 7y ago

    v0.3.0: HTML Changes and Bug Fix

    The first of the pivottabler-alignment breaks: header cells render as th rather than td, both because it is correct HTML and because pivottabler already did it, so tables converted between the two packages rendered differently. A compatibility flag preserves the old output. Redundant rowspan and colspan attributes were also dropped.

    View source ↗