tidytlg
A tables-listings-graphs package that reached CRAN and then went quiet.
Comparison · Analytics
marquee vs r2rtf
A side-by-side editorial comparison of marquee and r2rtf — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
marquee vs r2rtf: at a glance
What is marquee?
marquee is filling in the typographic details — outlines, border types, real font metrics for underlines.
marquee renders markdown text onto R graphics devices, and backs element_marquee() and geom_marquee() in ggplot2. Development ran in a tight burst through August and September 2025: 1.1.0 added text outlines, a size shortcut and remote PNG/JPEG support, 1.2.0 added border and outline line types and moved underline placement onto font metrics, and 1.2.1 cleaned up the bugs those introduced.
What is r2rtf?
The clinical-report table engine learned Chinese, then learned to leave RTF entirely
r2rtf builds the RTF tables, listings and figures that go into clinical study reports, and its recent releases have been about widening who and what it can serve rather than changing how tables are composed. The 1.2.0 release added internationalization — a SimSun font path for Chinese characters plus hyphenation control — and 1.3.0 followed with write_docx() and write_html(), turning the LibreOffice conversion the package had documented into exported functions.
marquee vs r2rtf: editorial side-by-side
marquee
0.0ANALYTICS
marquee is filling in the typographic details — outlines, border types, real font metrics for underlines.
◆ Current state
marquee renders markdown text onto R graphics devices, and backs element_marquee() and geom_marquee() in ggplot2. Development ran in a tight burst through August and September 2025: 1.1.0 added text outlines, a size shortcut and remote PNG/JPEG support, 1.2.0 added border and outline line types and moved underline placement onto font metrics, and 1.2.1 cleaned up the bugs those introduced.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is converging on typographic fidelity rather than new capability. Early work settled layout semantics — CSS margin collapsing, inline padding reserving space during shaping, devices without glyph support — and recent releases refine how decorations are drawn and measured. The naming cleanup in 1.2.0, border_size becoming border_width, reads as an API being tidied ahead of wider use rather than one still being explored.
◆ Prediction
Expect continued small releases sanding down rendering edge cases in ggplot2 contexts, since that is where the recent bug reports come from; nothing here signals a new feature area.
r2rtf
0.0ANALYTICS
The clinical-report table engine learned Chinese, then learned to leave RTF entirely
◆ Current state
r2rtf builds the RTF tables, listings and figures that go into clinical study reports, and its recent releases have been about widening who and what it can serve rather than changing how tables are composed. The 1.2.0 release added internationalization — a SimSun font path for Chinese characters plus hyphenation control — and 1.3.0 followed with write_docx() and write_html(), turning the LibreOffice conversion the package had documented into exported functions.
◆ Where it's heading
Two threads run through the window. One is output reach: RTF remains the composition target, but the artifacts that come out of it now include DOCX and HTML, and page numbering can be made table-relative across multi-page tables. The other is durability under a moving R and font stack — the ANSI/Unicode converter was rebuilt, the LaTeX mapping table generated from code rather than shipped as sysdata, unlist() usage fixed for R 4.5, and graphics-device leaks that produced stray Rplots.pdf closed off.
◆ Prediction
Having exported DOCX and HTML conversion, the likely next step is filling in what those formats lose relative to RTF — pagination and footnote fidelity are the obvious gaps. The i18n path currently covers Chinese only, so additional font families are the other plausible direction.
Alternatives to marquee and r2rtf
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either marquee or r2rtf.
Tplyr
Tplyr made clinical summary tables explain where every number came from.
rlistings
Clinical listings that keep inheriting their hardest problem — pagination — from the layer below.
hoardr
A cache-directory helper that has shipped nothing but CRAN-triggered patches for seven years.
gigs
gigs redesigned its whole conversion API for rOpenSci, then spent three releases getting the docs to build.
riem
A weather-data client that keeps rewriting its HTTP layer while slowly tightening its API.
See all marquee alternatives → · See all r2rtf alternatives →
Recent activity from marquee and r2rtf
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 7mo agor2rtfDOCX and HTML output become exported functions
- 11mo agomarqueeBug fixes for relative sizes, outlines and guide width
- 11mo agomarqueeBorder and outline line types; underlines follow font metrics
- 11mo agomarqueeRotated text width fixed; factor input supported
- 11mo agor2rtfChinese character support arrives via an i18n font path ⚡
- 0y agomarqueeText outlines, size shortcuts and images from URLs
- 1y agor2rtfText colour fixed for figures encoded into RTF
- 1y agor2rtfFootnote handling fixed for R 4.5.0
- 1y agor2rtfUnicode converter rebuilt and mapping table made inspectable
- 1y agomarquee1.0 settles margin collapsing and inline decoration spacing
- 2y agor2rtfUTF-8 conversion fix and LibreOffice 7.6 support
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between marquee and r2rtf?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. marquee and r2rtf are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is marquee better than r2rtf?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. marquee and r2rtf are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 0.0 vs 0.0, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to marquee?
Top marquee alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "marquee alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/marquee for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to r2rtf?
Top r2rtf alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "r2rtf alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/r2rtf for the full list with editorial commentary on each.