Kile – a convenient LaTeX editor – may also be used to prepare knitr-generated reports. Here is how we may make our work much more efficient with a convenient compile-on-keypress feature.

Create a bash script in your home directory, named e.g. ~/knitr-compile.sh:

#!/bin/bash
echo "Compiling $1 with LC_CTYPE=pl_PL.UTF-8..."
LC_CTYPE="pl_PL.UTF-8" Rscript -e "knitr::knit2pdf('$1')"

Give the above file EXEC perms by calling chmod 700 ~/knitr-compile.sh

Now it’s time to configure Kile:

1. Open Settings -> Configure Kile menu
   1. Tools -> Build in the options tree
      1. Click New and set:

         Name : knitr
         Default behavior : build
         

      2. General tab:

         Command: ~/knitr-compile.sh
         Options: '%source'
         

      3. Advanced tab:

         Type: Run Outside of Kile
         Class : Compile
         Source extension: Rnw
         Target extension: pdf
         Target file: /blank/
         Relative dir: /blank/
         State: Editor
         

      4. Menu tab:
         Add tool to Build menu: Compile
   2. Automatic syntax highlighting of .Rnw sources
      Select Editor -> Open/Save in the options tree,
      and then the Modes & Filetypes tab

      Filetype: Markup/LaTeX
      add "*.Rnw" to File extensions
      

   3. Click OK
2. Click Settings -> Configure Shortcuts (I use ALT+1)

–
Marek Gągolewski