Creating Custom PowerPoints with {officer} in R

by jsendak | May 23, 2025 | DS Articles

From a purely design perspective, Quarto’s standard PowerPoint output
falls short. It is limited to
seven layout
options, with the most complex being “Two Content.” The {officer} R
package offers a powerful alternative for those seeking full control and
customisation.

Why PowerPoint?

At work, I use a Linux operating system (OS), and at home, I use macOS.
Within my little bubble, it’s easy to forget how much of the market
share Microsoft still holds. It’s estimated that around 70% of the
desktop operating system market share belongs to
Microsoft.
Many of the clients I work with prefer Microsoft outputs, such as
PowerPoint, over HTML or PDF. Aside from company alignment with
Microsoft, there are a few practical reasons why using PowerPoint with
Quarto can be advantageous:

• No need to be a CSS / LaTeX whizz-kid to produce professional-looking
  slides
• Possible (and easy) to edit after rendering the doc!

What is {officer}?

From
davidgohel.github.io/officer

The officer package lets R users manipulate Word (.docx) and
PowerPoint (*.pptx) documents. In short, one can add images, tables
and text into documents from R. An initial document can be provided;
contents, styles and properties of the original document will then be
available.

This means for this workflow, Quarto is sidestepped altogether, and we
focus entirely on R scripts and R coding.

How?

There are a few ways to use {officer} – I’ll walk through the approach
that I’ve found to be most effective.

Layout templates

First – you’ll need a PowerPoint presentation that contains template
layout slides. There are no limits to these slides, the format can be as
custom as you like and there can be as many layouts as you want.
Remember – this file doesn’t need any actual slides, it only needs
layouts! To create a layout:

1. Enter “Slide Master” mode
2. Add any content (headers, footers, styling etc) you want to appear
   on each slide to the “Slide Master”
3. Create a new Layout Slide

To insert content from R, the easiest way is via placeholders. These can
be text, tables, images and more. To add a placeholder:

1. Click “Insert Placeholder” and choose the content type
2. If it’s a text placeholder, you can customise the formatting of the
   text

You can see below that I’ve added some basic Jumping River styling to
mine, and added two placeholders; a text placeholder for a title and an
image placeholder for a plot.

In order to access these placeholders easily from R, it’s better to
rename them:

1. Home tab
2. Click the “Select” dropdown
3. Click “Selection pane”
4. Select your placeholder and rename

Here I’ve named my image placeholder “plot”, and my text placeholder
for the slide title, “title”. Note that it’s also a good idea to name
your layout – just right click and hit rename. In this demo I’ve just
left it as “Title Slide”.

The R code

Now that I’ve got my template set up, the rest is in R. First, we load
{officer} and read the PowerPoint document in as an R object.

library("officer")
doc = read_pptx("mytemplate.pptx")

If you’ve forgotten your layout / placeholder names, access them through
layout_summary() and layout_properties()

layout_summary(doc)
layout_properties(doc, layout = "Title Slide", master = "Office Theme")

Before any content can be added, content is needed! Let’s use the
{palmerpenguins} package to create a simple plot of “Adelie” penguins
data

library("palmerpenguins")
library("dplyr")
library("ggplot2")

adelie_plot = penguins |>
 filter(species == "Adelie") |>
 ggplot(aes(x = bill_length_mm, y = flipper_length_mm)) +
 geom_point() +
 theme_linedraw() +
 theme(
 # Make the background transparent
 plot.background = element_rect(fill = "transparent", colour = NA),
 # Match the panel colour to the slide
 panel.background = element_rect(fill = "#F1EADE", colour = NA)) +
 labs(
 x = "Bill Length (mm)",
 y = "Flipper Length (mm)")

I can add empty slides to the document using the add_slide() function.
Here I simply choose a layout from my .pptx file to use.

doc = add_slide(doc, layout = "Jumping Rivers", master = "Office Theme")
doc

Then, using the ph_with() function, I can insert R objects into my
placeholders by name

doc = ph_with(
 doc,
 value = "Adelie",
 location = ph_location_label("title")
)
# Add the plot
doc = ph_with(
 doc,
 value = adelie_plot,
 location = ph_location_label("myplot")
)

To create the PowerPoint, use print()

print(doc, "penguins.pptx")

And there we have it! I’ve used only two placeholders here to keep the
example simple, but in reality there is no limit.

Looping

It’s easy to make use of programming when using purely R code to
generate PowerPoints. For instance, we could stick our code into a for
loop, and add a slide for each Penguin species

# Read in doc again
# this resets the doc object to the original file
doc = read_pptx("mytemplate.pptx")

for (penguin_species in c("Adelie", "Chinstrap", "Gentoo")) {
 doc = add_slide(doc, layout = "Title Slide", master = "Office Theme")
 # Add the title using the iterator value
 doc = ph_with(
 doc,
 value = penguin_species,
 location = ph_location_label("title")
 )
 # Create the plot using the iterator value
 penguin_plot = penguins |>
 filter(species == penguin_species) |>
 ggplot(aes(x = bill_length_mm, y = flipper_length_mm)) +
 geom_point() +
 theme_linedraw()
 theme(
 plot.background = element_rect(fill = "transparent", colour = NA),
 panel.background = element_rect(fill = "#F1EADE", colour = NA)) +
 labs(
 x = "Bill Length (mm)",
 y = "Flipper Length (mm)")
 # Add the plot
 doc = ph_with(
 doc,
 value = adelie_plot,
 location = ph_location_label("plot")
 )
}
# Output to a file
print(doc, "penguins_loop.pptx")

Conclusion

There are a few drawbacks to this method:

• It is quite annoying to insert large amounts of text using just an R
  script
• Content added to the “Slide Master” slide cannot be moved or edited on
  the output file
• The web version of powerpoint doesn’t have the Slide Master
  functionality features

However, I think the pros outweigh the cons:

• Completely (and I mean completely) custom layouts
• I haven’t covered this here but it’s really easy to convert ggplots
  to vector graphics in DrawingML format so they can be edited in
  PowerPoint
• Easier to programmatically generate lots of slides
• It can be edited after rendering by anyone!
• It can be styled before rendering by anyone!

For updates and revisions to this article, see the original post

Continue reading: Custom PowerPoints Using {officer}

Long-Term Implications and Future Developments of PowerPoint Customization with R

In simpler terms, the original article explained a method using the {officer} R package to customize PowerPoint presentations programmatically. The immense possibilities this approach offers cannot be understated, especially in an era where data and automation are fundamental. Here, we will further declutter the insights offered in the original article and discuss the potential implications.

Overcoming the Design Constraints of Quarto’s PowerPoint Output

Quarto, a popular tool for producing reports with data, restricts the variability in PowerPoint output. This limitation is resolved by the R package, {officer}, which bypasses Quarto’s restrictions, allowing extensive control and customization options on PowerPoint presentations.

{officer} and Its Value Proposition

The {officer} package essentially allows manipulation of Word and PowerPoint documents from the R programming language. The heart of this package stands in its power to add images, tables, and text into these MS Office documents from R and reuse the content, styles, and properties of an existing document. This means customization can be achieved primarily through R scripts and coding, opening the doors for automation in report generation.

How does the {officer} work?

The process involves the use of placeholder content on PowerPoint layout templates. The key lies in customizing such placeholders – be it for text, tables, images, etc., – in the PowerPoint presentation, which can later be populated programmatically through R scripts. This way, layout templates can be created in PowerPoint, media populated through R, and changes made even after the document is rendered, making the entire process highly flexible and adaptable.

Insights

1. Seamless Integration: {officer}’s ability to integrate PowerPoint with R reduces the workload when creating professional-looking slides. Moreover, users do not have to be proficient in CSS / LaTeX, making it more accessible.

2. Post-Rendering Edit: The rendered PowerPoint slide can still be edited. This offers unmatched flexibility, allowing users to make final adjustments even after automated rendering.

3. Powerful Looping: Being script-based, the R code can be looped to create multiple slides for different data sets efficiently.

4. Custom Styles: The layouts can be highly customized, with {officer} offering the ability to design completely bespoke slide templates.

Potential Drawbacks

However, some areas of concern node from the approach. Inserting large amounts of text only using an R script can be cumbersome, while content added to the “Slide Master” slide cannot be edited on the output PowerPoint.

Suggestions Based on the Analysis

Based on the insights, here are a few suggestions:

1. Training in the R language is vital, given its central role in this approach.
2. Also, relevant personnel should be familiar with PowerPoint’s Slide Master functionality for effective layout template creation.
3. Time should be allocated for refactoring text insertion methods, considering its notable downside mentioned above. The effort to improve this area will drastically improve the overall functionality.

To conclude, the method discussed in the original article opens exciting possibilities in automating PowerPoint presentations. By incorporating more customization and control into the mix, there is the potential to revolutionize how slide presentations are created.

Read the original article