Reduce spacing between columns in table created with kable(, format = 'markdown')

Question

I try to create a table using the format "markdown" of the function kable(), but the spaces between the columns are so wide that the table extends over the page. Is there anyway to adjust the cell size so that a table in markdown format does not extend over the page? In latex format it stays within the page, but I do not want this format nor do I want html. I want the output file to be .pdf. I know that a similar question has been asked here, but my question is specific to the format markdown. If you feel this is a duplicate, please merge the questions.

Reproducible example:

---
title: "Example"
author: "JAQuent"
date: "7 Juni 2017"
output: pdf_document
---

\tiny

```{r results='asis', echo = FALSE, warning = FALSE}
library(knitr)

table1 <- data.frame(Factor1 = c('level 1', 'level 1', 'level 2', 'level 2'),
                     Factor2 = c('level 1', 'level 2', 'level 1', 'level 2'),
                     Parameter1 = sample(1000000:9999999, 2),
                     Parameter2 = sample(1000000:9999999, 2),
                     Parameter3 = sample(1000000:9999999, 2),
                     Parameter4 = sample(1000000:9999999, 2),
                     Parameter5 = sample(1000000:9999999, 2),
                     Parameter6 = sample(1000000:9999999, 2),
                     Parameter7 = sample(1000000:9999999, 2))

names(table1) <- c('Factor1', 'Factor2', 'Parameter1', 'Parameter2', 'Parameter3', 'Parameter4', 'Parameter5', 'Parameter6', 'Parameter7')


kable(table1, format = 'markdown')
kable(table1, format = 'latex')
```

Just using kable(table1) actually gives a fitting table for me (removing the format argument) — timfaber
For Hao's answer, see for specifics on using kableExtra package. — phargart

lmo lmo · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-07T12:00:28

A couple of the examples in ?kable contain a padding argument. Feeding it 0L gets you closer, but it turns out that this argument will take negative integers, so

kable(table1, format = 'markdown', padding=-1L)

will produce something closer to what your are looking for.

Reduce spacing between columns in table created with kable(, format = 'markdown')

2 Answers