Let's say I have the following rmd:

---
title: "Table won't work"
author: "Exhausted student"
date: "2022/01/28"
output: 
  bookdown::word_document2
---

```{r table, echo=F, warning=F, message=F}
library(tidyverse)
a <- tibble(
  constants = c("c", "NA", "h", "e", "H2O"),
  values = c(2.998e8, 6.022e23, 6.626e-34, -1.602e-19, 18.02)
)

knitr::kable(a, digits = 35)
```

which produces

CodePudding user response：

You can use tildes (~) to put in subscript and carets (^) for superscripts; and use sprintf to get the expected digit format:

---
title: "Table won't work"
author: "Exhausted student"
date: "2022/01/28"
output: 
  bookdown::word_document2
---

```{r table, echo=F, warning=F, message=F}
library(tidyverse)

expSup <- function(x, digits=3) {
  sprintf(paste0(".", digits, "f x 10^%d^"), x/10^floor(log10(abs(x))), floor(log10(abs(x))))
}

a <- tibble(
  constants = c("c", "N~A~", "h", "e", "H~2~0"),
  values = expSup(c(2.998e8, 6.022e-23, 6.626e-34, -1.602e-19, 18.02))
)

knitr::kable(a)
```

CodePudding user response：

An option that probably falls in the no-go zone for this

Below is the code for my final output; if you are also trying to produce reproducible academic reports with lots of tables in Word format, hope this helps!

---
title: "The tables work!"
author: "Satisfied Student"
date: "2022/01/28"
output: 
  bookdown::word_document2:
    reference_docx: styleRef.docx
---
```{r setup, include = F}
library(easypackages)
packages(
  "tidyverse",
  "flextable", # This works best for my workflow
  "ftExtra", # For markdown formatting work in flextable
  "officer" # You can customize appearance/format/etc. of caption *prefixes*
)

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  warning = FALSE,
  message = FALSE,
  echo = FALSE,

  # Make the table caption format definable in reference_docx styles
  tab.cap.style = "Table Caption",

  # Make "Table 1:" prefixes not bold
  tab.cap.fp_text = fp_text_lite(bold = FALSE)

  # The tab.cap settings MUST be in a separate chunk from tables
)

# Converts scientific format to markdown
exp_sup <- function(x, digits = 3) {
  sprintf(paste0(".", digits, "f $\\times$ 10^%d^"), x / 10^floor(log10(abs(x))), floor(log10(abs(x))))
}
# The $\\times$ makes proper multiply symbols
```

```{r table}
a <- tibble(
  constants = c("c", "N~A~", "h", "e", "H~2~O"),
  values = c(2.998e8, 6.022e23, 6.626e-34, -1.602e-19, 18.02)
)

a %>%
  mutate(values = exp_sup(values)) %>%
  flextable() %>%
  set_caption(
    caption = "(ref:foo)", # Produces formatted caption text
    style = "Table Caption"
  ) %>%
  colformat_md() %>% # Subscript/superscript works in flextable now!
  theme_booktabs() %>% # The 3-part-table used in academics
  align(align = "center", part = "all") %>% #Align everything to center
  set_table_properties(layout = "autofit") # Comfortable width/height every cell
```

(ref:foo) A scientifically formatted `flextable` with ^superscripts^ and ~subscripts~

CodePudding user response：

Your code should look like this:

{r table, echo=F, warning=F, message=F}
library(tidyverse)
a <- tibble(
  constants = c("c", "NA", "h", "e", "$H_2O$"),
  values = c("$2.998 * {10^{8}}$", "$6.022 * {10^{-23}}$", "$6.626 * {10^{-34}}$", "$-1.602 * {10 ^{-19}}$", "$1.802 * {10^{1}}$")
)

knitr::kable(format = "html", a, digits = 35)

Which will give you the output like this: