Learn R Programming
bookdown (version 0.3)

render_book: Render multiple R Markdown documents into a book

Description

Render mulitple R Markdown files under the current working directory into a book. It can be used in the RStudio IDE (specifically, the knit field in YAML). The preview_chapter() function is a wrapper of render_book(preview = TRUE).

Usage

render_book(input, output_format = NULL, ..., clean = TRUE, envir = parent.frame(), 
    clean_envir = !interactive(), output_dir = NULL, new_session = NA, preview = FALSE, 
    encoding = "UTF-8")
preview_chapter(..., envir = parent.frame())

Arguments

input
An input filename (or multiple filenames). If preview = TRUE, only files specified in this argument are rendered, otherwise all R Markdown files specified by the book are rendered.
output_format, ..., clean, envir
Arguments to be passed to rmarkdown::render(). For preview_chapter(), ... is passed to render_book().
clean_envir
Whether to clean up the environment envir before rendering the book. By default, the environment is cleaned when rendering the book in a non-interactive R session.
output_dir
The output directory. If NULL, a field named output_dir in the configuration file _bookdown.yml will be used (possiblely not specified, either, in which case a directory name _book will be used).
new_session
Whether to use new R sessions to compile individual Rmd files (if not provided, the value of the new_session option in _bookdown.yml is used; if this is also not provided, new_session = FALSE).
preview
Whether to render and preview the input files specified by the input argument. Previewing a certain chapter may save compilation time as you actively work on this chapter, but the output may not be accurate (e.g. cross-references to other chapters will not work).
encoding
Ignored. The character encoding of all input files is supposed to be UTF-8.

Details

There are two ways to render a book from Rmd files. The default way (new_session = FALSE) is to merge Rmd files into a single file and render this file. You can also choose to render each individual Rmd file in a new R session (new_session = TRUE).