PDF manual when building R package

[yyu]

Hi,

When I carry out devtools::check() for my package, everything looks fine. I've noticed some people discuss building the PDF manual for the R package. Is it required for CRAN submission? I haven't found out I have such a pdf file sitting anywhere in my package. Hope you can shed some light in this regard. Thanks!

[maelle]

Yes the PDF is required but devtools::release() (or devtools::submit_cran()) will create it for you as these functions call pkgbuild::build() https://github.com/r-lib/devtools/blob/41280ac4b7d2c3f4aacec35e6c7d1de195de8418/R/release.R#L280 Most often you do not need to think about the PDF manual except when R CMD checks throw some error related to it.

For more context see Chapter 4 Package structure and state | R Packages especially the first item after the sentence "The main differences between a source package and an uncompressed bundle are:". Then for CRAN submissions You CRAN Do It | %>% dreams has great tips and a list of further resources.

[yyu]

Thank you so much for shedding some light. Actually, The manual argument is FALSE by default in devtools::check(), which caused me to think it is something we need to do on our side.

[maelle]

Ah right, and when you use usethis::use_release_issue() to get a checklist of things to do before a CRAN submission, one of the items is devtools::check(remote = TRUE, manual = TRUE).

[yyu]

Thanks. But I was told CRAN will generate the manual. It is not something I need to do.

[maelle]

Yes, the devtools command is just to check CRAN won't have any issue generating it, because if there is an issue, your package might not get accepted.