cran - Using a static (prebuilt) PDF vignette in R package

Question

What is the proper way, to include a static PDF file as a "vignette" in a CRAN package as of R 3.0?

The trick described in this document of using an empty stub Rnw does not seem to work in R 3.0. The document suggests that there is now a better way based on VignetteEngine{} but it's not quite clear how this works for static PDF files.

Answer 1

With R.rsp (>= 1.19.0) you can include a static PDF 'vignettes/main.pdf' by adding a tiny 'vignettes/main.pdf.asis' text file that contains:

%VignetteIndexEntry{My amazing package}
%VignetteEngine{R.rsp::asis}

and make sure to have:

Suggests: R.rsp
VignetteBuilder: R.rsp

in your package's DESCRIPTION file. This also works for static HTML vignettes. This is also explained in one of the R.rsp vignettes.