Rendering flextables to pdf in bookdown/markdown do not fit to page

Question

When I attempt to render a markdown document to pdf (using either pdf_document, or pdf_document2 from bookdown) I cannot get the included flextable (adapted from document I am referencing) to display as desired. This has been particularly frustrating as in Rstudio visual markdown editor the table displays as desired. I have attempted to use autofit() and set_table_properties(layout="autofit") to no no avail. Using the markdown script below I get tables that look like

and

when my desired output which is how it appears in visual editor is

I thought it could be due to complications with the merging of cells, borders and the theme, but even when I strip it down to a bare flextable I run into the same fitting issues. Rendering to html everything looks fine. All the posts and documentation I have found indicate it should work as written, not sure what I am missing.

---
title: "Test Flextables"
author: ""
date: ""
output:
  bookdown::pdf_document2:
    toc: false
    fig_caption: yes
    latex_engine: xelatex
    number_sections: false
    keep_tex: true
  pdf_document: default
  html_document: default
---

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE)
library(tidyverse)
library(flextable)
library(bookdown)
library(knitr)

TEST_TABLE <- structure(list(`Winter Feeding Strategy` = c("Shallow snow  terrestrial  lichen", 
"Shallow snow  terrestrial  lichen", "Shallow snow  terrestrial  lichen", 
"Shallow snow  terrestrial  lichen", "Shallow snow  terrestrial  lichen", 
"Deep snow  arboreal lichen"), `Ecotype Name` = c("BC  Northern Alberta  Mountain", 
"BC  Northern Alberta  Mountain", "BC  Northern Alberta  Mountain", 
"BC  Northern Alberta  Mountain", "BC  Northern Alberta  Mountain", 
"BC  Mountain"), Location = c("Northern BC", "West central BC", 
"North central BC", "East central BC", "West central Alberta", 
"Southeastern BC"), `Nationally Significant Population by National Ecological Area (SARA)` = c("Northern Mountain", 
"Southern Mountain", "Southern Mountain", "Southern Mountain", 
"Southern Mountain", "Southern Mountain"), `COSEWIC Designatable Unit (2011)` = c("Northern Mountain", 
"Northern Mountain", "Northern Mountain", "Central Mountain", 
"Northern Mountain", "Southern Mountain"), `Southern Mountain Caribou Groupings` = c("Not Applicable", 
"Central Group", "Central Group", "Central Group", "Central Group", 
"Southern Group")), row.names = c(NA, -6L), spec = structure(list(
    cols = list(`Winter Feeding Strategy` = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), `Ecotype Name` = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), Location = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), `Nationally Significant Population by National Ecological Area (SARA)` = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), `COSEWIC Designatable Unit (2011)` = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), `Southern Mountain Caribou Groupings` = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector"))), default = structure(list(), class = c("collector_guess", 
    "collector")), delim = ","), class = "col_spec"),  class = c("spec_tbl_df", 
"tbl_df", "tbl", "data.frame"))




```

## Test Table No Fitting

```{r TEST1, echo=FALSE, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE}



TEST_FLEX<- flextable(TEST_TABLE) %>% 
  merge_v(1:6)%>% 
  theme_zebra() %>% 
  border_inner_h() 
  
TEST_FLEX



```

## Test Table autofit()

```{r TEST2, echo=FALSE, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE}





TEST_FLEX<- flextable(TEST_TABLE) %>% 
  merge_v(1:6)%>% 
  theme_zebra() %>% 
  border_inner_h() 
  
autofit(TEST_FLEX)



```

## Test Table set_table_properties

```{r TEST3, echo=FALSE, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE}





TEST_FLEX<- flextable(TEST_TABLE) %>% 
  merge_v(1:6)%>% 
  theme_zebra() %>% 
  border_inner_h() 
  
set_table_properties(TEST_FLEX, layout="autofit")



```

Answer 1

Sorry, this was a bug. It should be fixed on Github (and soon available on CRAN).

---
title: "Test Flextables"
author: ""
date: ""
output:
  bookdown::pdf_document2:
    toc: false
    fig_caption: yes
    latex_engine: xelatex
    number_sections: false
    keep_tex: true
  pdf_document: default
  html_document: default
---

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE)
library(tidyverse)
library(flextable)
library(bookdown)
library(knitr)

TEST_TABLE <- structure(list(`Winter Feeding Strategy` = c("Shallow snow  terrestrial  lichen", 
"Shallow snow  terrestrial  lichen", "Shallow snow  terrestrial  lichen", 
"Shallow snow  terrestrial  lichen", "Shallow snow  terrestrial  lichen", 
"Deep snow  arboreal lichen"), `Ecotype Name` = c("BC  Northern Alberta  Mountain", 
"BC  Northern Alberta  Mountain", "BC  Northern Alberta  Mountain", 
"BC  Northern Alberta  Mountain", "BC  Northern Alberta  Mountain", 
"BC  Mountain"), Location = c("Northern BC", "West central BC", 
"North central BC", "East central BC", "West central Alberta", 
"Southeastern BC"), `Nationally Significant Population by National Ecological Area (SARA)` = c("Northern Mountain", 
"Southern Mountain", "Southern Mountain", "Southern Mountain", 
"Southern Mountain", "Southern Mountain"), `COSEWIC Designatable Unit (2011)` = c("Northern Mountain", 
"Northern Mountain", "Northern Mountain", "Central Mountain", 
"Northern Mountain", "Southern Mountain"), `Southern Mountain Caribou Groupings` = c("Not Applicable", 
"Central Group", "Central Group", "Central Group", "Central Group", 
"Southern Group")), row.names = c(NA, -6L), spec = structure(list(
    cols = list(`Winter Feeding Strategy` = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), `Ecotype Name` = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), Location = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), `Nationally Significant Population by National Ecological Area (SARA)` = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), `COSEWIC Designatable Unit (2011)` = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), `Southern Mountain Caribou Groupings` = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector"))), default = structure(list(), class = c("collector_guess", 
    "collector")), delim = ","), class = "col_spec"),  class = c("spec_tbl_df", 
"tbl_df", "tbl", "data.frame"))
```

## Test Table No Fitting

```{r TEST1, echo=FALSE, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE}
TEST_FLEX<- flextable(TEST_TABLE) %>% 
  merge_v(1:6)%>% 
  theme_zebra() %>% 
  border_inner_h() 
  
TEST_FLEX
```

Answer 2

If you're willing to tolerate a huxtable-based solution (my package), is this close to what you want?

library(huxtable)
tth <- as_hux(TEST_TABLE) |> 
         merge_repeated_rows(everywhere, 1:6) |> 
         set_tb_borders() |> 
         set_width("6in") |> 
         set_col_width(c(.6/5, .6/5, .6/5, .4,.6/5, .6/5)) 

where quick_pdf(tth, width = "7in", height = "4in") looks like the below:

You can customize output further with huxtable commands, eg setting background colors for your header, or adding a stripe with map_background_color(tth, by_rows(...)) .