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How to set up Sublime Text to be able to render open R Markdown documents.

Pre-Requisites

  • You need to have R installed on your computer

    • On Ubuntu you can do this from the terminal with:

      $ sudo apt install r-base-core

    • On macOS, download RStudio from its website

    Check that it’s worked from the terminal with:

    $ R --version

  • You also need to have the R package rmarkdown installed. This can be done by opening R (eg by running R in the terminal) and executing:

    install.packages("rmarkdown")

  • If you will be running Python chunks in your R Markdown files you will also need to have the reticulate package:

    install.packages("reticulate")

    It might also be useful to have the libpython Ubuntu package, see the “Additional Setup” note below.

  • Pandoc must also be installed

    • On Ubuntu you can get this from the terminal:

      $ sudo apt install pandoc

    • On macOS it can be downloaded from its website

    Check that you have it from the terminal with:

    $ pandoc --version

Installation

Install the R-IDE and LSP packages in Sublime Text:

  • “Preferences” > “Package Control” (Ctrl+Shift+P on Ubuntu and Windows, Cmd+Shift+P on macOS)
  • Search for “Install Package” and hit enter
  • Search for “R-IDE” and hit enter to install it
  • Do the same to install “LSP”

Check that it has worked by opening an R Markdown file (one with .Rmd as the extension) in Sublime Text and seeing if the syntax highlighting is working. The current syntax highlighting is displayed in the bottom right-hand corner and can be changed by selecting it and choosing “R-IDE” > “R Markdown”.

Additional Setup for Python Users
If you run Python code in R Markdown it will use the python3 command in the background (ie it will use the same version of Python as when you run python3 in a terminal). This may be exactly what you want, in which case you can skip ahead. If you have multiple versions of Python installed, however, you might want to use a different version to that associated with python3, for example you might want to use Python 3.13 which is associated with the terminal command python3.13. That can be achieved by adding the following chunk in your R Markdown file:

```{r, echo = FALSE}
library(knitr)
opts_chunk$set(engine.path = "/usr/bin/python3.13")
```

However, with some versions of Python (eg 3.11) this might result in the following error:

Error: '/usr/bin/python3.11' was not built with a shared library.
reticulate can only bind to copies of Python built with '--enable-shared'.

As mentioned in the error message, your Python does not have a shared library. If you install Python from source (eg if you are on Ubuntu and you downloaded it from the Python website) you should do so with the following step as part of the process in order to create a shared library:

$ ./configure --enable-shared

On Ubuntu, if you install Python a different way (eg by using apt) then you can download the shared library libpython as an Ubuntu package, eg libpython3.11 for Python 3.11:

$ sudo apt install libpython3.11

Usage

To start with – just to check that it works – use R-IDE to render an R Markdown file:

  • Open an R Markdown file (one with .Rmd as the extension) in Sublime Text and have it active (click inside it to place your cursor there)
  • Navigate in the menu bar to “R-IDE” > “Render R Markdown”. If you don’t see this option, skip ahead. If you do see this option, it should cause a file to be created.
    • The file type of this output will depend on what option was set with the output parameter in the R Markdown file’s YAML configuration (eg output: html_document will give you an HTMl file)

Now check to see if you can do this rendering by invoking a Sublime Text “Build System”:

  • Navigate in the menu bar to “Tools” > “Build” (Ctrl+B on Ubuntu and Windows, Cmd+B on macOS)
  • If this doesn’t work and you see No Build System in the lower left-hand corner you will need to create a Build System manually

Creating an R Markdown Build System Manually
From the menu bar, go to “Tools” > “Build System” > “New Build System”. In the untitled.sublime-build file that appears, replace everything with:

{
    "cmd"       : ["Rscript", "-e", "rmarkdown::render('$file')"],
    "selector"  : "text.html.markdown.r"
}

Note: the "selector" line is needed for this Build System to be associated with files that are within the R Markdown scope. To check what scope a file is in, go to “Tools” > “Developer” > “Show Scope Name” (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+P) while the file is active

Save this file as R Markdown.sublime-build in the default location.

For the record, these default locations are:

  • Ubuntu: /home/<username>/.config/sublime-text/Packages/User
  • macOS: /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 4/Packages/User

The parent folder (“Packages”) can be opened via “Preferences” > “Browse Packages…”

Now you should be able to render your R Markdown file with the Build System:

  • Select “Tools” > “Build System” > “R Markdown”
  • Build your R Markdown file with “Tools” > “Build” (Ctrl+B on Ubuntu and Windows, Cmd+B on macOS). You will be able to tell if the Build System is working.
  • Go back to the default behaviour with “Tools” > “Build System” > “Automatic” otherwise Sublime Text will use the R Markdown Build System on every file

Now try to build the file again using the “Automatic” Build System. If you get the No Build System outcome it means that the R Markdown Build System is working but Sublime Text has simply not associated it with .Rmd files: change the "selector" line in your sublime-build file so that it reflects the top-level scope of R Markdown files (go to “Tools” > “Developer” > “Show Scope Name” (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+P) while the file is active to see what this is).

If it works, it means that from now on you can just build R Markdown files with “Tools” > “Build” (Ctrl+B/Cmd+B) every time.

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