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Last active June 13, 2021 17:45
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use knitr (knit2pdf) to generate a PDF report in a Shiny app

To see this app in action, run this in R:

library(shiny)
runGist('https://gist.github.com/yihui/6091942')
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
<<names>>=
input$firstname
input$lastname
@
\end{document}
library(knitr)
shinyServer(function(input, output) {
output$report = downloadHandler(
filename = 'myreport.pdf',
content = function(file) {
out = knit2pdf('input.Rnw', clean = TRUE)
file.rename(out, file) # move pdf to file for downloading
},
contentType = 'application/pdf'
)
})
library(shiny)
shinyUI(basicPage(
textInput('firstname', 'First name', value = 'Jimmy'),
textInput('lastname', 'Last name', value = 'John'),
downloadButton('report')
))
@jonathanflint
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I've tried using this method on linux, but it falls down at the rename step due to an invalid cross-device link. It works when I run the gist, but not when I do it locally from Rstudio or on shiny-server.
Any idea why?

Error is:

Warning in file.rename(out, file) :
cannot rename file 'notexchange.pdf' to '/tmp/RtmpvJdVpU/file6e8028e1d1f7', reason 'Invalid cross-device link'
Error opening file: 2
Error reading: 9

@geotheory
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Alas this fails for me with cannot open the connection..

@makman7
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makman7 commented Sep 16, 2015

After the whole day searching i just know here that objects accessible in .Rnw from ui and server file so u can create reports in shinny app...
ty man

@lomeshptl48
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Hello, this is all bull sit..

not work any code..
just post foll example with working demo..

there are too many errors are occure when i reguest for generate PDF.
anyone can help me to generate PDF of my data.. or any form of data.. in shiny.. plz.. help me/.. !!

@Bustami
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Bustami commented Feb 5, 2016

It's awesome. Thanks a lot man!

@Mettekl
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Mettekl commented Jan 4, 2018

I had similiar problems with the downloadHandler when generating longer pdf reports.
The timeout is default 45 s and it can be set by changing the http_keepalive_timeout parameter in the shiny-server configuration file @natrot. See here:
https://github.com/rstudio/shiny-server/blob/master/config/shiny-server-rules.config

@jonathanflint try to use file.copy instead of file.rename. It does not seem to have the same problem.

@jaloszekk
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I tried to use your example but I am not able to change the name of the pdf, cuz when I do that it causes error.

@csliangy
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Hi, Yihui

I have posted the same message on your blog but I think this might be a better place to discuss the issue.

I published the exact the same sample app on shinyapps.io but I came cross the following issues (I can run locally on my windows as well as RStudio Server (On an Ubuntu)):

2018-10-26T01:48:44.985563+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: Server version: 1.6.8-6
2018-10-26T01:48:44.985565+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: LANG: en_US.UTF-8
2018-10-26T01:48:44.985618+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: rmarkdown version: NA
2018-10-26T01:48:44.985614+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: R version: 3.5.1
2018-10-26T01:48:44.985616+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: shiny version: 1.1.0
2018-10-26T01:48:45.133726+00:00 shinyapps[535924]:
2018-10-26T01:48:44.985619+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: knitr version: 1.20
2018-10-26T01:48:44.985617+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: httpuv version: 1.4.5
2018-10-26T01:48:45.128881+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: Using jsonlite for JSON processing
2018-10-26T01:48:45.172152+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: Listening on http://127.0.0.1:41445
2018-10-26T01:48:44.985620+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: RJSONIO version: NA
2018-10-26T01:48:44.985621+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: htmltools version: 0.3.6
2018-10-26T01:48:45.133728+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: Starting R with process ID: '18'
2018-10-26T01:48:44.985699+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: Using pandoc at /opt/connect/ext/pandoc2
2018-10-26T01:48:45.172150+00:00 shinyapps[535924]:
2018-10-26T01:48:44.985619+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: jsonlite version: 1.5
2018-10-26T01:48:54.630740+00:00 shinyapps[535924]:
2018-10-26T01:48:54.630742+00:00 shinyapps[535924]:
2018-10-26T01:48:54.630744+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: processing file: input.Rnw
2018-10-26T01:48:54.652924+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: ordinary text without R code
2018-10-26T01:48:54.652725+00:00 shinyapps[535924]:
|
| | 0%
|
|...................... | 33%
2018-10-26T01:48:54.652925+00:00 shinyapps[535924]:
2018-10-26T01:48:54.653358+00:00 shinyapps[535924]:
|
|........................................... | 67%
2018-10-26T01:48:54.654942+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: label: names
2018-10-26T01:48:54.729765+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: ordinary text without R code
2018-10-26T01:48:54.729719+00:00 shinyapps[535924]:
|
|.................................................................| 100%
2018-10-26T01:48:54.729766+00:00 shinyapps[535924]:
2018-10-26T01:48:54.730620+00:00 shinyapps[535924]:
2018-10-26T01:48:54.732189+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: output file: input.tex
2018-10-26T01:48:54.732189+00:00 shinyapps[535924]:
2018-10-26T01:48:54.734834+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: Warning: Error in loadNamespace: there is no package called ‘tinytex’
2018-10-26T01:48:54.739940+00:00 shinyapps[535924]: [No stack trace available]

Thanks,
Liang

@Kamakshaiah
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Kamakshaiah commented Jan 8, 2019

Hi yihui,
This is really a very helpful information. However, I am getting the following warning while executing "app".

Warning in file.rename(out, file) : cannot rename file 'input.pdf' to '/tmp/RtmpAeLXey/file1c6b135b80b9.pdf', reason 'Invalid cross-device link'

No output file is being created after...
Will you please help me how to solve this? Thanks

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