curriculr

curriculr is an R package for producing data-driven curriculum vitae documents. You maintain your CV content in an Excel workbook. curriculr reads it, converts it into Typst layout blocks, and renders a polished PDF via Quarto's Typst engine. No LaTeX. No vitae. No custom .cls files.

Installation

You can install curriculr from CRAN:

install.packages("curriculr")

For the latest development features, install from GitHub:

# install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("erwinlares/curriculr")

Requirements

• R (>= 4.2.0)
• Quarto 1.4 or later (ships with Typst support built in)

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Getting started

Step 1 — scaffold your project

Call create_cv() with no arguments. This copies the template workbook and a placeholder profile image into your current working directory:

library(curriculr)
create_cv()

You will see:

v Created cv-data-template.xlsx
v Created placeholder.png
i Next steps:
1. Open cv-data-template.xlsx and fill in the profile sheet.
2. Replace placeholder.png with your own profile photo.
3. Call create_cv(data = 'cv-data-template.xlsx', photo = 'your-photo.png')

Step 2 — fill in the workbook

Open cv-data-template.xlsx. Start with the profile sheet:

field	value
first_name	Your first name
last_name	Your last name
job_title	Your current title
address	Your mailing address
email	your@email.edu
website	yourwebsite.com
github	your-github-username
linkedin	in/your-linkedin
profile_statement	One or two sentence professional summary
photo	Relative path to your profile image

Then fill in the remaining sheets with your CV content. The readme sheet inside the workbook explains the column schema and date entry conventions in detail.

Step 3 — render

create_cv(
  data  = "cv-data-template.xlsx",
  photo = "your-photo.png"
)

This writes CV.qmd and CV.pdf next to your workbook. Open CV.pdf to review the output. To update your CV, edit the workbook and call create_cv() again with overwrite = TRUE.

To render without a profile photo, omit the photo argument. The header will use a single-column layout with your name, contact line, and profile statement centered on the page:

create_cv(data = "cv-data-template.xlsx")

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Rendering a resume

When you want a shorter, focused version of your CV, use variant = "resume". curriculr will include only the rows you have checked in the include_in_resume column of each section sheet:

create_cv(
  data        = "cv-data-template.xlsx",
  photo       = "your-photo.png",
  variant     = "resume",
  output_file = "resume.pdf"
)

Check and uncheck rows directly in the workbook. No R code changes are needed to switch between CV and resume variants.

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Customizing the rendered PDF

Changing colors, fonts, and page layout

Open your workbook and edit the theme sheet. Each key maps to a visual setting:

key	what it controls
font_family	Body font (e.g. Lato, Arial)
font_size	Base font size (e.g. 8.8pt)
body_color	Main text color (hex code)
accent_color	Section headings, dates, and rules (hex code)
dark_color	Entry titles and name in the header (hex code)
papersize	Page size (us-letter or a4)
margin_x	Left and right margins (e.g. 0.62in)
margin_y	Top and bottom margins (e.g. 0.58in)

Re-render after editing the theme sheet with overwrite = TRUE to see the changes.

Changing section order or content

Edit the sections sheet in your workbook. Reorder rows to reorder sections. Delete a row to remove a section.

Adding a new section

Use add_section() to add a new sheet and register it in the sections control sheet in one step:

add_section(
  "cv-data-template.xlsx",
  section  = "patents",
  label    = "Patents",
  date_fun = "year_only"
)

The new sheet is pre-populated with the standard column spine. Open the workbook, add your data, and re-render.

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Functions

create_cv()

The main entry point. No arguments triggers scaffold mode. With data triggers render mode.

# Scaffold mode
create_cv()

# Render mode -- full CV with Font Awesome icons in the contact line
create_cv(
  data        = "cv-data.xlsx",
  photo       = "me.jpeg",
  output_file = "erwin-lares-cv.pdf"
)

# Render mode -- resume variant, plain text contact line
create_cv(
  data        = "cv-data.xlsx",
  photo       = "me.jpeg",
  variant     = "resume",
  use_icons   = "none",
  output_file = "erwin-lares-resume.pdf"
)

Arguments:

• data -- path to the workbook. NULL triggers scaffold mode.
• photo -- path to the profile image. NULL renders without a photo.
• output_file -- PDF filename. Defaults to "CV.pdf".
• overwrite -- whether to overwrite existing files. Defaults to FALSE.
• variant -- "cv" (all rows) or "resume" (checked rows only).
• use_icons -- "fontawesome" (default) or "none".

add_section()

Adds a new sheet to an existing workbook and registers it in the sections control sheet.

add_section(
  "cv-data-template.xlsx",
  section   = "invited_talks",
  label     = "Invited Talks",
  date_fun  = "month_year",
  where_col = "where"
)

read_cv_data()

Reads all sheets from the workbook into a named list. The profile and theme sheets become named character vectors; section sheets become data frames; the sections sheet is returned in row order.

cv <- read_cv_data("cv-data-template.xlsx")
cv <- read_cv_data("cv-data-template.xlsx", variant = "resume")

cv$experience           # a data frame
cv$sections             # the sections control sheet
cv$profile[["email"]]   # a scalar string
cv$theme[["accent_color"]]  # a scalar string

cv_contact_line()

Assembles the contact line from a profile vector. Useful when building custom Quarto templates.

cv_contact_line(cv$profile, use_icons = "fontawesome")
cv_contact_line(cv$profile, use_icons = "none")

cv_render_section()

Iterates over a CV data frame and writes each row as a formatted Typst entry. Called inside CV.qmd -- you will not normally call this directly.

typst_escape()

Escapes Typst-sensitive characters in a string. Useful when building custom Quarto templates.

cv_section()

Returns a raw Typst string for a section heading. Useful when building custom Quarto templates.

resolve_date_fun()

Maps a date_fun token string to an R date formatting function. Useful when building custom rendering logic outside the standard template.

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Workbook schema

Every section sheet shares a common column spine:

title | unit | startMonth | startYear | endMonth | endYear | where | detail | include_in_resume

title is always the primary entry label. unit is the secondary line. include_in_resume is a boolean checkbox column -- check a row to include it when rendering with variant = "resume". Leave cells blank rather than typing NA.

Date conventions

Situation	startMonth	startYear	endMonth	endYear
Ongoing role	Jan	2018	present	(blank)
Completed role	Mar	2015	Dec	2022
Single-year event	(blank)	2021	(blank)	(blank)
No date	(blank)	(blank)	(blank)	(blank)

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Migration notes

Detailed notes on upgrading from previous versions are available in the changelog. The key changes by version:

v0.2.0 to v0.3.0 -- photo = NULL now produces a no-photo layout instead of falling back to a placeholder. Workbooks need an include_in_resume column on every section sheet. An optional theme sheet controls fonts, colors, and page layout. openxlsx2 replaces readxl.

v0.1.0 to v0.2.0 -- create_cv() gained scaffold mode (no arguments) and render mode (with arguments). Workbooks need a sections sheet to control which sections appear and in what order.

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Related packages

curriculr shares an author and design philosophy with three other R packages focused on reproducible research workflows:

• toolero -- research project scaffolding and data wrangling utilities
• containr -- containerization of R projects via Dockerfile generation
• submitr -- job submission to UW-Madison's CHTC from inside R

Together, toolero, containr, and submitr form the From the Notebook to the Cluster pipeline. curriculr is independent but follows the same conventions: small focused functions, data-driven workflows, and Quarto as the publishing layer.

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Acknowledgements

curriculr was inspired by two prior projects:

• vitae by Mitchell O'Hara-Wild, Rob Hyndman, and contributors
• Awesome CV by Byungjin Park (posquit0)

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Citation

If you use curriculr in your work, please cite it:

citation("curriculr")

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License

MIT (c) Erwin Lares