pkgdown is an R package (by the r-lib group) whose purpose is to generate static websites (HTML) for R packages, automatically converting a package’s help files, vignettes, README, NEWS, etc., into a documentation website. It helps package authors share their documentation online with minimal friction. It supports custom templates, themes, and configuration. pkgdown 2.0.0 includes an upgrade from Bootstrap 3 to Bootstrap 5, which is accompanied by a whole bunch of minor UI improvements. If you’ve heavily customised your site, there’s a small chance that this will break your site, so everyone needs to explicitly opt in to the upgrade.

Features

  • Builds a website from an R package: documentation (‘man/’ help pages), vignettes/articles, README, and NEWS become site components
  • Configuration via _pkgdown.yml to customize the site (navigation, templates, theme, etc.)
  • Supports Bootstrap themes (recent versions upgraded to Bootstrap 5) for modern-looking site layouts and better UI/UX
  • Provides local preview of site; can preview before publishing; integrates with GitHub Pages or other hosting workflows
  • Support for rendering vignettes or articles, including rendering RMarkdown / Quarto etc into HTML for display on the site
  • Automatically creates reference section, function help lookup, Search, navigation sidebars etc., so end users can easily browse documentation and examples

Project Samples

Project Activity

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License

MIT License

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pkgdown Web Site

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Additional Project Details

Operating Systems

Linux, Mac, Windows

Programming Language

R

Related Categories

R Static Code Analysis Tool

Registered

2025-09-12