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Create Markdown Links to Files with Document Titles

Source: R/make_file_links.R
make_file_links.Rd

Scans a folder for files matching a pattern and generates a markdown list with links to each file. The link text is extracted from the document's title metadata (for DOCX, PPTX, PDF files) or uses the filename as fallback.

Usage

make_file_links(
  folder = ".",
  pattern = "",
  bullet_style = "-",
  recurse = FALSE,
  relative_links = TRUE
)

Arguments

folder

String. Path to the folder containing files. Defaults to current directory (".").

pattern

String. Regular expression pattern for file matching (e.g., "\\.pptx$", "\\.pdf$", "^report_.*\\.docx$"). Defaults to "" (all files).

bullet_style

String. Markdown list style. One of "-" (unordered), "*" (unordered), or "1." (ordered). Defaults to "-".

recurse

Logical. Whether to search recursively in subdirectories. Defaults to FALSE.

Logical. Whether to use relative or absolute paths in links. If TRUE, paths are relative to folder. If FALSE, uses absolute paths. Defaults to TRUE.

Value

A character string containing a markdown-formatted list of links. Each line contains a bullet point and a link with the document title as link text. Returns empty string if no files found.

Details

The function attempts to extract document titles from file metadata:

  • DOCX files: Extracts title from document properties (requires officer package)

  • PPTX files: Extracts title from presentation properties (requires officer package)

  • PDF files: Extracts title from PDF metadata (requires pdftools package)

If title extraction fails or the file type is unsupported, the filename (without extension) is used as the link text.

The function preserves the order of files as returned by fs::dir_ls(), which typically sorts alphabetically.

Optional Packages

The pdftools package is optional (in Suggests) and only needed for PDF title extraction.

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
# Create links to all PowerPoint files in a folder
make_file_links(folder = "presentations", pattern = "\\.pptx$")

# Create links to PDF reports with numbered list
make_file_links(
  folder = "reports",
  pattern = "^report_.*\\.pdf$",
  bullet_style = "1."
)

# Recursively find all Office documents
make_file_links(
  folder = "documents",
  pattern = "\\.(docx|pptx)$",
  recurse = TRUE
)
} # }