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This page covers two utilities that complement the border functions in flextable.

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fix_border_issues()

fix_border_issues() resolves rendering inconsistencies that can occur when borders of adjacent cells conflict. flextable stores borders per-cell, and when both adjacent cells specify a shared edge, different output formats resolve the conflict differently. This function normalises the border data so that rendering is consistent across Word, PowerPoint, HTML, and PDF. Call this function after you have finished applying all border settings and before rendering. 
fix_border_issues(x, part = "all")
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x
flextable
required
A flextable object.
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part
string
default:"\"all\""
Which part to process: "body", "header", "footer", or "all".

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Return value

The modified flextable object with normalised border data.

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Example

library(officer)

ft <- flextable(head(iris))
ft <- border_outer(ft, border = fp_border(color = "black", width = 2))
ft <- border_inner_h(ft, border = fp_border(color = "gray", width = 1))
ft <- fix_border_issues(ft)
ft

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before()

before() is a helper function used as a row selector inside the i argument of hline(). It returns a logical vector that is TRUE for every row that immediately precedes one of the specified entries values. This makes it easy to draw a separator line above summary rows such as "Total". 
before(x, entries)
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x
atomic vector
required
The column values to test. Typically a column from the table’s data frame.
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entries
atomic vector
required
One or more values to search for. The function returns TRUE for the row immediately before each first occurrence of any of these values.

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Return value

A logical vector of the same length as x.

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Example

Insert a thick line above the “Total” row: 
library(flextable)
library(officer)

dat <- data.frame(
  Level = c("setosa", "versicolor", "virginica", "<NA>", "Total"),
  Freq  = as.integer(c(50, 50, 50, 0, 150))
)

ft <- flextable(dat)
ft <- hline(
  ft,
  i = ~ before(Level, "Total"),
  border = fp_border_default(width = 2)
)
ft

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See also