`caption =` argument not working in kable() R

Question

I'm having trouble exporting a kable table with LaTex using save_kable() function after I add the caption = argument in kable() function.

I thought it was because I recently updated my R version, RStudio version, TeX version, and everything that could cause errors, but then I switch to R Servers (R 4.3.2 currently), which I never touched upon before. I got the same error message that says "! LaTeX Error: Something's wrong--perhaps a missing \item." If I delete the caption =, I was able to export the table in LaTex. Here is a minimum example.

library(tidyverse)
library(kableExtra)
library(magick)
dt <- mtcars[1:5, 1:6]
dt %>%
  kbl("latex",caption = "Recreating booktabs style table") %>%
  save_kable(file = "a.png")

Any help would be appreciated!

Answer 1

I do get the same error when including the caption argument in kable(). There are alternatives to this, that don’t require Latex. You could use gt::gt() to create a nice table and then save it with gtsave().

library(gt)
table <-
  mtcars[1:5, 1:6] |>
  gt() |>
  tab_header("Recreating booktabs style table")

table

# Save as png:
gtsave(table, "a.png")