Why you shouldn't paste R output straight into Word
Dropping the console block into your document is the fastest route to a revision request. R's
output uses a monospaced font, space-based alignment, unreadable scientific notation such as
4.56e-09, and column headers written for the console rather than for a reader
(Pr(>|t|) is not a table heading).
A proper scientific table has readable headers, three horizontal rules and no vertical ones, a uniform number of decimals per column, a title above and an explanatory note below. That is exactly what this tool produces.
What booktabs is
It is the LaTeX package that implements the typographic standard for scientific tables, through
the commands \toprule, \midrule and \bottomrule. It exists
because fully gridded tables — the Excel default — are considered visually noisy and make numeric
data harder to read. Add this to your preamble:
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{siunitx} % decimal-aligned columns (optional)
Which format to use where
- LaTeX — for Overleaf or any LaTeX thesis class.
- Markdown — for R Markdown, Quarto, Notion or Obsidian.
- HTML — paste directly into Word or Google Docs: table formatting is preserved, including the three horizontal rules.
- CSV — open in Excel and format by hand if you want full control.
- APA paragraph — running prose for your Results section.
How R reports very small p values
Two notations cause confusion. 4.56e-09 is scientific notation and equals
0.00000000456. < 2e-16 is R's numeric precision limit — the value is too small to be
represented. In both cases, report it as p < .001. Never write "p = .000",
which is mathematically impossible. This tool handles the conversion automatically, including the
APA convention of dropping the leading zero.
Native alternatives in R
If you work with many models, it is worth automating inside R itself:
library(broom); tidy(model, conf.int = TRUE) library(stargazer); stargazer(model, type = "latex") library(modelsummary); modelsummary(model, output = "latex") library(gtsummary) # excellent for participant characteristics tables
This tool is for the case where you already have the output in hand and need the table now — without installing a package or rewriting your script.
To understand what each number in the output means, see the guide on reading summary(lm) line by line. For writing conventions, see how to report statistical results in APA 7.