Opening HTML or PDF in RStudio viewer pane

[DSHerzberg]

Is there a way to do this without rendering a .rmd? I found this code but couldn't figure out how to apply it:

tempDir <- tempfile()
dir.create(tempDir)
htmlFile <- file.path(tempDir, "index.html")
# (code to write some content to the file)
viewer <- getOption("viewer")
viewer(htmlFile)

[jennybc]

The main constraint, for security reasons, is that RStudio's Viewer will only open files below the session temp directory.

But maybe @kevinushey can weigh in to correct or refine this.

[kevinushey]

That is indeed correct.

[DSHerzberg]

Does this mean that it can't be done?

[gaborcsardi]

You can do it, but you need to copy the file(s) into tempdir() and then open them from there with the function returned by getOption("viewer").