How to show an excel worksheet in outlook body by

Question

I can attach an excel file into outlook by RDCOMClinet package. but how can I show the excel worksheet content in the mail body by R? Assume there's a table and a graph are contained in a worksheet.

library(RDCOMClient)
## init com api
OutApp <- COMCreate("Outlook.Application")
## create an email
outMail = OutApp$CreateItem(0)

## configure  email parameter
outMail[["To"]] = "[e-mail]"
outMail[["subject"]] = paste0("Report ", Sys.Date() - 1)

# attach a file via its directory
dirs <- dir(getwd(), full.names = TRUE)
outMail[["Attachments"]]$Add(dirs)

# insert an excel worksheet from attachment or local drive
outMail[["HTMLBody"]] = ?  

Answer 1

For the table part, you could do for example

library(RDCOMClient)
library(openxlsx)
library(xtable)

OutApp <- COMCreate("Outlook.Application")
outMail = OutApp$CreateItem(0)
outMail[["To"]] = "[e-mail]"
outMail[["subject"]] = paste0("Report ", Sys.Date() - 1)

wb <- createWorkbook()
addWorksheet(wb, "S1")
writeDataTable(wb, "S1", x = head(iris))
saveWorkbook(wb, tf <- tempfile(fileext = "xlsx"))
df <- read.xlsx(tf)
df_html <- print(xtable(df), type="html", print.results=FALSE)

outMail[["Attachments"]]$Add(tf)
outMail[["HTMLBody"]] = sprintf('
Hello world, here is the table:
%s
Merry Christmas & a happy New Year!
', df_html) # add your html message content here
outMail$Send()

I don't know of an option for the chart part. Maybe embed an Excel chart in an Outlook email and inspect the resulting HTML?