Dataframe rendering in PDF: page overflow for cells with long text

[gabrielparriaux]

Bug description

I’m rendering a document with a dataframe in PDF format.

When the content of one cell of the dataframe is too long to fit on a single page (for example, a long string), the dataframe in the PDF output overflows the page and runs off the bottom of the page. A part of the text disappears and is not displayed.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Steps to reproduce

Here is an example:

---
title: "test"
format:
  pdf:
    tbl-colwidths: auto
    df-print: kable
---

```{r}
#| label: load-libraries
#| echo: false

library(knitr)
```
# This is a test

And here is my table.

```{r}
#| label: define-dataframe
#| output: true
#| echo: false

timestamp <- c("00:00:00", "00:00:20")
teacher_id <- c("teacher01", "teacher01")
statement_text <- c(
    "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis.",
    "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate eget, arcu. In enim justo, rhoncus ut, imperdiet a, venenatis vitae, justo. Nullam dictum felis eu pede mollis pretium. Integer tincidunt. Cras dapibus. Vivamus elementum semper nisi. Aenean vulputate eleifend tellus. Aenean leo ligula, porttitor eu, consequat vitae, eleifend ac, enim. Aliquam lorem ante, dapibus in, viverra quis, feugiat a, tellus. Phasellus viverra nulla ut metus varius laoreet. Quisque rutrum. Aenean imperdiet. Etiam ultricies nisi vel augue. Curabitur ullamcorper ultricies nisi. Nam eget dui. Etiam rhoncus. Maecenas tempus, tellus eget condimentum rhoncus, sem quam semper libero, sit amet adipiscing sem neque sed ipsum. Nam quam nunc, blandit vel, luctus pulvinar, hendrerit id, lorem. Maecenas nec odio et ante tincidunt tempus. Donec vitae sapien ut libero venenatis faucibus. Nullam quis ante. Etiam sit amet orci eget eros faucibus tincidunt. Duis leo. Sed fringilla mauris sit amet nibh. Donec sodales sagittis magna. Sed consequat, leo eget bibendum sodales, augue velit cursus nunc, quis gravida magna mi a libero. Fusce vulputate eleifend sapien. Vestibulum purus quam, scelerisque ut, mollis sed, nonummy id, metus. Nullam accumsan lorem in dui. Cras ultricies mi eu turpis hendrerit fringilla. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; In ac dui quis mi consectetuer lacinia. Nam pretium turpis et arcu. Duis arcu tortor, suscipit eget, imperdiet nec, imperdiet iaculis, ipsum. Sed aliquam ultrices mauris. Integer ante arcu, accumsan a, consectetuer eget, posuere ut, mauris. Praesent adipiscing. Phasellus ullamcorper ipsum rutrum nunc. Nunc nonummy metus. Vestibulum volutpat pretium libero. Cras id dui. Aenean ut eros et nisl sagittis vestibulum. Nullam nulla eros, ultricies sit amet, nonummy id, imperdiet feugiat, pede. Sed lectus. Donec mollis hendrerit risus. Phasellus nec sem in justo pellentesque facilisis. Etiam imperdiet imperdiet orci. Nunc nec neque. Phasellus leo dolor, tempus non, auctor et, hendrerit quis, nisi. Curabitur ligula sapien, tincidunt non, euismod vitae, posuere imperdiet, leo. Maecenas malesuada. Praesent congue erat at massa. Sed cursus turpis vitae tortor. Donec posuere vulputate arcu. Phasellus accumsan cursus velit. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Sed aliquam, nisi quis porttitor congue, elit erat euismod orci, ac placerat dolor lectus quis orci. Phasellus consectetuer vestibulum elit. Aenean tellus metus, bibendum sed, posuere ac, mattis non, nunc. Vestibulum fringilla pede sit amet augue. In turpis. Pellentesque posuere. Praesent turpis. Aenean posuere, tortor sed cursus feugiat, nunc augue blandit nunc, eu sollicitudin urna dolor sagittis lacus. Donec elit libero, sodales nec, volutpat a, suscipit non, turpis. Nullam sagittis. Suspendisse pulvinar, augue ac venenatis condimentum, sem libero volutpat nibh, nec pellentesque velit pede quis nunc. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Fusce id purus. Ut varius tincidunt libero. Phasellus dolor. Maecenas vestibulum mollis diam. Pellentesque ut neque. P"
)
recipient <- c("class", "class")

# create a dataframe composed of the previous variables
lesson_disc_for_display <- data.frame(timestamp, teacher_id, statement_text, recipient)

```

```{r}
#| label: lesson-display-full-discourse
#| output: true
#| echo: false
#| tbl-colwidths: [10,10,70,10]

# display lesson full discourse
kable(lesson_disc_for_display[c("timestamp", "teacher_id", "statement_text", "recipient")])

```

Expected behavior

I would like the rendering process to split the content of the cell and to display it on two or more pages if needed.

Actual behavior

The dataframe in the PDF output overflows the page and runs off the bottom of the page. A part of the text disappears and is not displayed.

Your environment

— Positron Version: 2024.12.0 (Universal) build 96
Code - OSS Version: 1.93.0
Commit: c5ce275dc502f6b15433b271802cb33e1ba5ef68
Date: 2024-11-28T02:47:29.898Z
Electron: 30.4.0
Chromium: 124.0.6367.243
Node.js: 20.15.1
V8: 12.4.254.20-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.3.0

— MacOS Sequoia 15.3

Quarto check output

Quarto 1.6.40
[✓] Checking environment information...
Quarto cache location: /Users/p2955/Library/Caches/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
Pandoc version 3.4.0: OK
Dart Sass version 1.70.0: OK
Deno version 1.46.3: OK
Typst version 0.11.0: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
Version: 1.6.40
Path: /Applications/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
TinyTeX: (not installed)
Chromium: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
Using: Installation From Path
Path: /Library/TeX/texbin
Version: 2023

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
Version: 3.11.7
Path: /Users/p2955/.pyenv/versions/3.11.7/bin/python
Jupyter: (None)

  Jupyter is not available in this Python installation.
  Install with python3 -m pip install jupyter

[✓] Checking R installation...........OK
Version: 4.4.2
Path: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources
LibPaths:
- /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.4-arm64/Resources/library
knitr: 1.49
rmarkdown: 2.29

[✓] Checking Knitr engine render......OK

[mcanouil]

Could you fix your example to use code cells? None of the code will execute in the current state of the example.

Quarto or Pandoc does not control how long content overflow in the underlying technology, and it won't modify the input based on some opinionated rules.
Additionnally, you can check the options of kable() to tweak the LaTeX code it emits.

You can see the LaTeX code with keep-tex: true.

Note that there is a Discussion board in the repository which is better suited for questions as highlighted in the issue template you just filled: https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli/discussions

Edit: below is a small reproducible example

Input	Output
--- title: "test" format: pdf --- ```{r} #| tbl-colwidths: [10,10,70,10] knitr::kable(data.frame( timestamp = c("00:00:00", "00:00:20"), teacher_id = c("teacher01", "teacher01"), statement_text = c("{{< lipsum 4 >}}", "{{< lipsum 3 >}}"), recipient = c("class", "class") )) ```

[mcanouil]

Note that this overflow issue is a "classic" LaTeX one so the answer is very likely online in places more dedicated to LaTeX.
knitr::kable() has many options to tweak the emitted LaTeX table (and force it to emit LaTeX table as it can emits Markdown and HTML as well).

[mcanouil]

Also, note that Typst does a better job here:

Input	Output
--- title: "test" format: typst --- ```{r} #| tbl-colwidths: [10,10,70,10] knitr::kable(data.frame( timestamp = c("00:00:00", "00:00:20"), teacher_id = c("teacher01", "teacher01"), statement_text = c("{{< lipsum 4 >}}", "{{< lipsum 3 >}}"), recipient = c("class", "class") )) ```

[mcanouil]

FYI, the lipsum shortcode works here because by default kable emits a Markdown table in this case.

[gabrielparriaux]

Thanks again @mcanouil for your precious advice. I have seen quite a lot of discussion about overflow in the LaTeX community, but for the moment there is nothing that really helps me solve this overflow. I would continue my research for a solution.

Typst seems great in this case, but as my document is quite long and I’m relying on some LaTeX features to produce my PDF, I’m afraid it would be quite an important rework to convert everything to Typst…

[gabrielparriaux]

The bad news seems that any long table can be broken between pages only between rows and never in a row, which is my case… I saw that in several stackexchange discussions… for example here.