flextable reads a global defaults object before rendering any table. Changing these defaults once — typically in a setup chunk — saves you from repeating the same arguments on every table.
Setting defaults
set_flextable_defaults() updates one or more defaults and returns the previous values invisibly. This lets you restore the original state with do.call().
library(flextable)
# Save old values and apply new ones
old <- set_flextable_defaults(
font.color = "#AA8855",
border.color = "#8855AA"
)
ft <- qflextable(head(airquality))
ft
# Restore previous values
do.call(set_flextable_defaults, old)
Parameter reference
Typography
| Parameter | Default | Description |
|---|
font.family | OS-dependent | Font for Unicode range U+0000–U+007F. Set to "Arial" on Windows, "Helvetica" on macOS, "DejaVu Sans" on Linux. |
cs.family | same as font.family | Complex-script font (e.g. Arabic). Word output only. |
eastasia.family | same as font.family | East Asian font (e.g. Japanese). Word output only. |
hansi.family | same as font.family | High ANSI font for characters not covered by other ranges. Word output only. |
font.size | 11 | Font size in points. |
font.color | "black" | Font color; any R color name or hex string. |
line_spacing | 1 | Line spacing multiplier. 1 = single, 2 = double. |
When outputting to Word with non-ASCII characters, set both font.family and hansi.family to the same font name.
Alignment and padding
| Parameter | Default | Description |
|---|
text.align | "left" | Cell text alignment. One of "left", "right", "center", "justify". |
padding | — | Shortcut that sets all four padding values at once. |
padding.bottom | 5 | Bottom padding in points. |
padding.top | 5 | Top padding in points. |
padding.left | 5 | Left padding in points. |
padding.right | 5 | Right padding in points. |
Borders and background
| Parameter | Default | Description |
|---|
border.color | "#666666" | Border color. |
border.width | 0.75 | Border width in points. |
background.color | "transparent" | Cell background color. |
Table layout and alignment
| Parameter | Default | Description |
|---|
table.layout | "fixed" | Column-width algorithm. "fixed" or "autofit". |
table_align | "center" | Horizontal alignment of the table itself. "left", "center", or "right". |
| Parameter | Default | Description |
|---|
decimal.mark | "." | Decimal separator used by colformat_num() / colformat_double(). |
big.mark | "," | Thousands separator. |
digits | 1 | Number of decimal digits for colformat_double(). |
pct_digits | 1 | Decimal digits for percentage columns. |
na_str | "" | String shown in place of NA. |
nan_str | "" | String shown in place of NaN. |
fmt_date | "%Y-%m-%d" | Date format string; see ?strptime. |
fmt_datetime | "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S" | Datetime format string. |
HTML-specific
| Parameter | Default | Description |
|---|
extra_css | "" | Additional CSS injected into the table’s <style> block. |
scroll | NULL | Pass a list to enable a scrollable HTML box. See scroll in set_table_properties(). |
PDF / LaTeX-specific
| Parameter | Default | Description |
|---|
fonts_ignore | FALSE | Set to TRUE when using pdflatex, which cannot embed custom fonts. xelatex and lualatex support fonts normally. |
tabcolsep | 2 | Space between text and the left/right cell border (LaTeX). |
arraystretch | 1.5 | Row height multiplier relative to default (LaTeX). |
float | "none" | PDF float placement. Options: "none", "float", "wrap-r", "wrap-l", "wrap-i", "wrap-o". |
Word-specific
| Parameter | Default | Description |
|---|
split | TRUE | Allow rows to break across pages ("Allow row to break across pages" in Word). |
keep_with_next | FALSE | Default for the paginate() function’s keep-rows-together option. |
Theme
| Parameter | Default | Description |
|---|
theme_fun | "theme_booktabs" | Name of the default theme function, or a theme function itself. Applied to every new flextable. |
Post-processing hooks
Post-processing functions run just before the table is rendered. Use them to apply output-specific modifications without repeating yourself.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
post_process_all | Runs first, before any output-specific hook. |
post_process_pdf | Runs for PDF output only. |
post_process_docx | Runs for Word output only. |
post_process_html | Runs for HTML output only. |
post_process_pptx | Runs for PowerPoint output only. |
# Add a footer line only in Word
set_flextable_defaults(
post_process_docx = function(ft) {
add_footer_lines(ft, "Source: internal data")
}
)
Retrieving current defaults
get_flextable_defaults() returns the current defaults as a named list:
Printing the result shows a structured summary grouped by style properties, cell content settings, table layout, and theme.
Resetting to package defaults
init_flextable_defaults() discards any customizations and restores the original package defaults:
init_flextable_defaults()
Best practice: setup chunk
Set your defaults once in the document setup chunk so every table in the document inherits them:
library(flextable)
set_flextable_defaults(
font.size = 10,
font.family = "Arial",
padding = 3,
table.layout = "autofit",
border.color = "#444444",
na_str = "—"
)
Use fp_text_default() and fp_border_default() when building custom chunks or borders — they automatically read from the active defaults so your custom styles stay in sync with the rest of the table.
Default-aware helper objects
fp_text_default() creates an officer::fp_text() object pre-filled with the current font family, size, and color. Only override the properties you need:
set_flextable_defaults(
font.size = 11, font.color = "#303030",
padding = 3, table.layout = "autofit"
)
z <- flextable(head(cars))
z <- compose(
x = z,
i = ~ speed < 6,
j = "speed",
value = as_paragraph(
as_chunk("slow... ", props = fp_text_default(color = "red")),
as_chunk(speed, props = fp_text_default(italic = TRUE))
)
)
z
init_flextable_defaults()
fp_border_default() creates an officer::fp_border() using the current border color and width:
set_flextable_defaults(border.color = "orange")
z <- flextable(head(cars))
z <- theme_vanilla(z)
z <- vline(z, j = 2, part = "all", border = fp_border_default())
z
init_flextable_defaults()