here is a solution with css style tag in the UI, another option (that you can read about, is adding a custom CSS file)
library(shiny)
ui <- fluidPage(
tags$style("#mytext {white-space: pre-line;}"),
verbatimTextOutput("mytext")
)
server <- function(input, output, session) {
output$mytext <- renderPrint({
sentences <- rep("this is a sentence\n",5)
length(sentences)
cat(paste0(1:length(sentences)," ",sentences))
})
}
shinyApp(ui, server)