Over the previous several articles I’ve shared different approaches to sharing and communicating athlete data. Over this time I got a question about {shiny} apps and if I had a way to easily build in capabilities to save the report as a PDF for those times when you want to save the report as a PDF to email out or print the report and take it to a decision-maker.

Today I’ll go over two of the easiest ways I can think of to add some PDF save functionality to your {shiny} app. Before we jump in, if you are looking to just get started with {shiny} apps, aside from searching my blog for the various apps I’ve built (there are several!), Ellis Hughes and I did a 4 part series on building a {shiny} app from scratch:

• TidyX 25: Intro to shiny apps
• TidyX 26: Shiny apps part 1 – Creating an NBA dashboard
• TIdyX 27: Shiny apps part 2 – Adding tabs and improving UI
• TidyX 28: Shiny apps part 3 – K-nearest neighbor and reactivity

Alright, now to jump into building a {shiny} app with the ability to save as PDF. As always, you can access the full code to the article on my GITHUB page.

Loading Packages & Data

As always, we need to load the packages that we need and some data. For this, I’ll keep things simple and just use the mtcars data that is available in base R, since I’m mainly concerned with showing how to build the app, not the actual data analysis.

#### packages ----------------------------------------------
library(shiny)
library(shinyscreenshot)
library(DT)
library(gridExtra)
library(ggpubr)
library(tidyverse)

## data ----------------------------------------------------
dat <- mtcars %>%
  mutate(cyl = as.factor(cyl),
         car_type = rownames(.)) %>%
  relocate(car_type, .before = mpg)

 

App 1: Printing the app output as its own report

The user interface for this app will allow the user to select a Cylinder (cyl) number and the two plots and table will update with the available info.

The server of this app is where the magic happens. What the user sees on the web app is not exactly what it looks like when saved as a PDF. To make this version work, I need to store my outputs in their own elements and then take those elements and output them as an export. I do this by saving a copy within the render function for each of the outputs. I also create an empty reactive values element within the server, which sets each plot and table to NULL, but serves as a container to store the output each time the user changes the cylinder number.

You’ll notice in the output$tbl section of the server, I produce one table for viewing within the app while the second table is stored for PDF purposes. I do this because I like the ggtextable() table better than the simple base R one, as it has more customizable options. Thus, I use that one for the PDF report. Here is what the server looks like:

server <- function(input, output){
  
  ## filter cylinder
  cyl_df <- reactive({
    
    req(input$cyl)
    
    d <- dat %>%
      filter(cyl == input$cyl)
    d
    
  })
  
  
  ## output plt1
  output$plt1 <- renderPlot({
    
    vals$plt1 <- cyl_df() %>%
      ggplot(aes(x = wt, y = mpg)) +
      geom_point(size = 4) +
      theme_bw() +
      labs(x = "wt",
           y = "mpg",
           title = "mpg ~ wt") +
    theme(axis.text = element_text(size = 12, face = "bold"),
          axis.title = element_text(size = 15, face = "bold"),
          plot.title = element_text(size = 20))
    
    vals$plt1
    
    
  })
  
  ## output table
  output$tbl <- renderTable({
    
    tbl_df <- cyl_df() %>%
      setNames(c("Car Type", "MPG", "CYL", "DISP", "HP", "DRAT", "WT", "QSEC", "VS", "AM", "GEAR", "CARB"))
    
    # store table for printing
    vals$tbl <- ggtexttable(tbl_df,
                            rows = NULL,
                            cols = c("Car Type", "MPG", "CYL", "DISP", "HP", "DRAT", "WT", "QSEC", "VS", "AM", "GEAR", "CARB"),
                            theme = ttheme('minimal',
                                           base_size = 12))
    
    # return table for viewing
    tbl_df
    
  })
  
  
  ## output plt2
  output$plt2 <- renderPlot({
    
    vals$plt2 <- cyl_df() %>%
      ggplot(aes(x = disp, y = hp)) +
      geom_point(size = 4) +
      theme_bw() +
      labs(x = "disp",
           y = "hp",
           title = "hp ~ disp") +
      theme(axis.text = element_text(size = 12, face = "bold"),
            axis.title = element_text(size = 15, face = "bold"),
            plot.title = element_text(size = 20))
    
    vals$plt2
    
  })
  
  
  ## The element vals will store all plots and tables
  vals <- reactiveValues(plt1=NULL,
                         plt2=NULL,
                         tbl=NULL)
  
  
  ## clicking on the export button will generate a pdf file 
  ## containing all stored plots and tables
  output$export = downloadHandler(
    filename = function() {"plots.pdf"},
    content = function(file) {
      pdf(file, onefile = TRUE, width = 15, height = 9)
      grid.arrange(vals$plt1,
                   vals$tbl,
                   vals$plt2,
                   nrow = 2,
                   ncol = 2)
      
      dev.off()
    })
}

 

Here is what the shiny app will look like when you run it:

When the user clicks the Download button on the upper left, they can save a PDF, which looks like this:

Notice that we are returned the plots and table from the {shiny} app, however we don’t have the overall title. I’m sure we could remedy this within the server, but what if we want to simply produce a PDF that looks exactly like what we see in the web app?

App 2: Take a screen shot of your shiny app!

If we want to have the downloadable output look exactly like the web app, we can use the package {shinyscreentshot}.

The user interface of the app will remain the same. The server will change as you no longer need to store the plots. You simply need to add an observeEvent() function and tell R that you want to take a screenshot of the page once the button is pressed!

Since we are taking a screen shot I also took the liberty of changing the table of data to a {DT} table. I like {DT} tables better because they are interactive and have more functionality. In the previous {shiny} app it was harder to use that sort of interactive table and store it for PDF printing. Since we are taking a screenshot, it opens up a lot more options for us to customize the output.

Here is what the server looks likes:

server <- function(input, output){
  
  ## filter cylinder
  cyl_df <- reactive({
    
    req(input$cyl)
    
    d <- dat %>%
      filter(cyl == input$cyl)
    d
    
  })
  
  
  ## output plt1
  output$plt1 <- renderPlot({ cyl_df() %>%
      ggplot(aes(x = wt, y = mpg)) +
      geom_point(size = 4) +
      theme_bw() +
      labs(x = "wt",
           y = "mpg",
           title = "mpg ~ wt") +
    theme(axis.text = element_text(size = 12, face = "bold"),
          axis.title = element_text(size = 15, face = "bold"),
          plot.title = element_text(size = 20))
    
  })
  
  ## output table
  output$tbl <- renderDT({ cyl_df() %>%
      datatable(class = 'cell-border stripe',
                rownames = FALSE,
                filter = "top",
                options = list(pageLength = 4),
                colnames = c("Car Type", "MPG", "CYL", "DISP", "HP", "DRAT", "WT", "QSEC", "VS", "AM", "GEAR", "CARB"))
    
  })
  
  ## output plt2
  output$plt2 <- renderPlot({ cyl_df() %>%
      ggplot(aes(x = disp, y = hp)) +
      geom_point(size = 4) +
      theme_bw() +
      labs(x = "disp",
           y = "hp",
           title = "hp ~ disp") +
    theme(axis.text = element_text(size = 12, face = "bold"),
          axis.title = element_text(size = 15, face = "bold"),
          plot.title = element_text(size = 20))
    
    
  })
  
  observeEvent(input$go, {
    screenshot()
  })
}

The new web app looks like this:

Looks pretty similar, just with a nicer table. If the user clicks the Screenshot Report at the upper left, R will save a png file of the report, which looks like this:

As you can see, this produces a downloadable report that is exactly like what the user sees on their screen.

Wrapping Up

There are two simple ways to build some save functions directly into your {shiny} apps. Again, if you’d like the full code, you can access it on my GITHUB page.

Since I’ve been talking about approaches to sharing and visualizing athlete performance data lately, I decided to put together some quick code for developing collapsible tables with the {reactable} package in R.

I like Reactable tables because they offer a simple framework for quickly building interactive html reports for your end user. You can also embed these into {Rmarkdown} reports or {shiny} apps.

Why do we need collapsible tables?

1. The collapsible nature educes the amount of real estate they take up in the end user’s report. Instead of a big long table, the user can take the information in chunks without getting distracted.
2. When embedding a collapsible table into your {Rmarkdown} or {shiny} reports, it makes them look less busy.
3. In meetings, if you have a large number of athletes to discuss, spread across several positions, a large table allows the meeting attendees to have “busy eyes“, as they scan up and down the table and get ahead of things. With a collapsible table, you are able to direct their attention to the aspects you are discussing.

You can access all of the code on my GITHUB page and use it as a template to construct your own collapsible interactive tables. I tried to add several different styling options to the various columns so that it covers many of the things people attempt to do when building reports (e.g., conditional formatting, conditional formatting using information contained in a secondary column, rounding numbers, converting values to percentages, hiding columns you don’t want in the table, etc.).

To play with the html table yourself, CLICK HERE >> collapsible tables with reactable

Examples of the table

The data came from the {Lahman} baseball data set in R. I build a table that nests the players within their respective teams and the teams nested within their respective league (NL or AL). So, this table has 2 structures of collapsing. The table of the table looks like this:
Notice that all we see are the headers (which I’ve set a filterable function under) and the top level of nesting (league).

If you click one of the league drop downs, you expand out and see the second level of testing (teams):

Finally, you can click down into any team and obtain the list of players and their stat lines:

Within the code, you’ll notice that I created a simple z-score for each of the stats. The shading is relative to the z-scores; however, to de-clutter the table, I’ve hidden those columns but retain their meaning by using the conditional formatting.

If a person is at the highest level of nesting (league) and wants to just search for a player, that is also possible:

As you can see, collapsible interactive tables can be a great way to share data in a clean way and prevents the end user from being overwhelmed by long and extensive amounts of data across many rows and columns.

In the last three blog articles we’ve been talking about ways of displaying athletes’ test performance from both a numeric and visual stand point. Often, practitioners require these types of analysis to be placed in a report that can be used as a discussion point in meetings.

As much as I love {shiny} some colleagues work in environments where they don’t have the ability to make their web apps accessible to their decision-makers because they don’t have access to server space and don’t want to make their report public, for anyone to see (gotta retain that competitive advantage!). In these situations, I turn to Rmarkdown, plotly, and crosstalk.

Together, these three packages are massively valuable for producing interactive reports that can be saved in html format and emailed out to decision-makers and practitioners without having to worry about the data being hosted on a web application or something that might end up in the public domain. Essentially, we are just creating a report, like any other report we might email, but building it with html widgets that allow the recipients to interact directly with the data (which they often seem to appreciate and have fun with).

For this web report I am going to use data from the {Lahman} baseball database, which is freely accessible in R.

The finished product looks like this:

If you would like to view the finished product in action, CLICK HERE >> mlb_player_report.

To access the html file and play with it yourself, CLICK HERE >> mlb_player_report.

To access all the code to produce this report and build your own, go to my GITHUB page.

Some of the key features:

• The Report Details note tells the used the type of data being used in the report (All MLB players drafted in 2010 or later who have played at least 8 seasons).
• Each plot has a larger header section with bulleted notes indicating the ways in which the user can interact with it.
• Notice that I have a handy table of contents that the user can click on and immediately be brought to the section of the report they are interested in.
• There are two tabs. The first tab is dedicated to evaluating players. The second tab is specific to evaluating differences between positional groups.
• All of the plots have been built with plotly so they are completely interactive.
• I used crosstalk to create plots that allow the user to select/filter things of interest, such as rookie seasons (plot 1), players (plot 2), or positional groups (plot 3).

Let’s look at some still photos of the plots.

Rookie Season Plot

Player Career Performance Plot

Position Comparison Plot