| RKWard | |
|---|---|
 | |
 RKWard screenshot | |
| Developer | RKWard community |
| Stable release | 0.8.3
/ April 24, 2026 (2026-04-24) |
| Written in | C++, ECMAScript |
| Operating system | BSD, Linux, macOS, Unix, Windows |
| Type | Statistical software |
| License | GNU General Public License |
| Website | rkward |
| Repository | |
RKWard is a transparent front-end to the R programming language, a scripting-language with a strong focus on statistics functions. RKWard tries to combine the power of the R language with the ease of use of commercial statistical packages.
RKWard is written in C++ and although it can run in numerous environments, it was designed for and integrates the KDE desktop environment with the Qt (software) libraries.
Features
RKWard's features include1
- Spreadsheet-like data editor
- Syntax highlighting, code folding and code completion
- Data import (e.g. SPSS, Stata, CSV and Excel through package `rio`)
- Plot preview and browsable history
- R package management
- Workspace browser
- GUI dialogs for all kinds of statistics and plots
Interface
RKWard aims to be easy to use, both for people with deep knowledge of R, and for users who, although they have experience in statistics, are not familiar with the language. The application design offers the possibility of using the graphic tools as well as ignoring many of them and using the program as integrated development environment.
It includes a workspace viewer, which gives access to packages, functions, and variables loaded by R or imported from other sources. It also has a file viewer, and data set editing windows, display of the contents of the variables, help, command log, and HTML output.
Furthermore, it also offers components that help in code editing and direct order execution, such as the script window and the R console, where one can enter complete commands or programs as one would in the original R text interface. Likewise, it provides additional help such as syntax coloring documentation of functions while writing, and includes the feature of capturing graphs or emerging dialogs produced by offering additional options for handling, saving, and exporting them.
In recent versions, RKWard includes integration with RMarkdown such as highlighting, preview, and exporting. It has also included an integration with git for projects version control.
Package Management
The R package management is carried out through a configuration dialog that allows one to either automatically (because a plug-in requires it) or manually install new packages from the repository's official project, update existing ones, delete them, or upload/download them from the workspace.
Add-ons system
Thanks to its add-ons system RKWard constantly expands the number of functions that can be accessed without writing the code directly. These components allow, from a graphical user interface, instructions to be generated in R for the most common or complex statistical operations. In this way, even without having deep knowledge about the language, it is possible to perform advanced data analysis or elaborated graphs. The results of the computations are formatted and presented as HTML, making it possible, with a single click and drag, to export tables and graphs to, for example, office suites.
Add-ons available through The Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN)
| Name | Version As of December 2, 2025 | Description |
|---|---|---|
| cocor | 1.1-4 | Statistical tests for the comparison between two correlations based on either independent or dependent groups. Dependent correlations can either be overlapping or nonoverlapping. |
| cocron | 1.0-1 | Statistical Comparisons of Two or more Alpha Coefficients. Statistical tests for the comparison between two or more alpha coefficients based on either dependent or independent groups of individuals. |
| klausuR | 0.12-14 | Multiple Choice Test Evaluation A set of functions designed to quickly generate results of a multiple choice test. |
| koRpus | 0.13-8 | Text Analysis with Emphasis on POS Tagging, Readability, and Lexical Diversity |
List of add-ons available on RKWard Repository KDE application data
| Name | Version As of December 2, 2025 | Description |
|---|---|---|
| rk.aiken.v | 0.02.8 | An RKWard plugin to calculate Aiken's coefficients for content validity (V) and homogeneity (H). |
| rk.ANOVA | 0.01-23 | RKWard GUI to conduct ANOVAs (using the ez package), pairwise t-Tests and plot interactions. |
| rk.ClusterAnalysis | 0.01-15 | RKWard GUI to conduct k-means, model based and hierarchical cluster analyses. |
| rk.CohenKappa | 0.01-9 | RKWard GUI to calculate Cohen's Kappa |
| rk.cSplit | 0.01.9 | An RKWard plugin to split concatenated columns into a long or wide format using the cSplit() function from the 'splitstackshape' package. |
| rk.downloadAppImage | 0.01-0 | Adds a dialog to install or update an AppImage of RKWard. |
| rk.dplyr | 0.1.3 | An RKWard plugin for data table combination and manipulation using the 'dplyr' library. |
| rk.FactorAnalysis | 0.01-16 | RKWard GUI to conduct principal component and factor analysis. |
| rk.forcats | 0.1.7 | An RKWard plugin package for factor manipulation using the 'forcats' library. |
| rk.ggsurvey | 0.1.3 | A plugin package analyze complex survey designs with custom plugins and the 'ggsurvey' package. |
| rk.gitInstall | 0.2-1 | RKWard GUI to install R packges directly from git or subversion repositories. |
| rk.gsub.sub | 0.0.7 | RKWard GUI for sub() and gsub() to find and replace patterns in character vectors. |
| rk.gtsummary | 0.1.0 | An RKWard plugin to generate summary tables using the 'gtsummary' package, supporting both standard data.frames (tbl_summary) and survey design objects (tbl_svysummary). |
| rk.MultidimensionalScaling | 0.6.0 | RKWard GUI for multidimensional scaling. |
| rk.pivot.reshape | 0.01.8 | An RKWard plugin to reshape data by pivoting it longer or wider using functions from the 'tidyr' package. |
| rk.stringr | 0.1.0 | An RKWard plugin for string manipulation using the 'stringr' library. |
| rk.survey.design | 0.7.6 | A plugin package to create and analyze complex survey designs using the 'survey' package. |
| rk.transpose.df | 0.01.2 | An RKWard plugin to transpose a data frame, turning rows into columns and columns into rows. |
| rkTeaching | 1.4.0 | A plugin with basic utilities for teaching statistics, and gives access to most common commands for data manipulation, probabilities, distributions, descriptive statistics (tables, measures and graphics), parametric tests, non-parametric tests, correlations and regressions. |
| rkwarddev | 0.10-3 | A Collection of Tools for RKWard Plugin Development. |
| XiMpLe | 0.11-1 | A Simple XML Tree Parser and Generator. |
Other add-ons available on GitHub
| n | Name | Version As of May 17, 2026 | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | rk.ddi.import | 0.0.5 | An RKWard plugin designed to streamline the workflow of processing raw survey data. It reads Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) compliant XML files—commonly distributed by statistical agencies like INEGI (Mexico), DANE (Colombia), and others—and automatically applies variable descriptions and value labels to your R data frames. |
| 2 | rk.shiny.plugins | 1.2.0 | rk.shiny.plugins, bundles several interactive data visualization and analysis tools (Shiny apps and HTML widgets) into a single, easy-to-install RKWard extension. The entire development process is encapsulated within the R script, making it reproducible, easy to maintain, and simple to extend with new plugins |
| 3 | rk.exporter | 0.0.1 | rk.exporter brings seamless, automated batch exporting capabilities to the RKWard GUI. Stop wasting hours manually exporting plots one by one or copy-pasting tables into Microsoft Office.
Powered by purrr, flextable, and officer, this plugin suite allows you to take a List of ggplot2 objects or flextables and instantly export them as hundreds of individual high-res files, or compile them directly into professional, multi-page Word documents, PDFs, or PowerPoint presentations. |
| 4 | rk.flextable | 0.0.3 | RKWard plugin that provides a graphical interface for the powerful flextable package. It allows users to easily create, format, and export professional tables for scientific publications and reports directly from the RKWard GUI, without writing complex R code. |
| 5 | rk.googlesheets4 | 0.0.2 | This package provides a suite of RKWard plugins that create a graphical user interface for the popular `googlesheets4` R package. It is designed to bridge the gap between desktop RKWard sessions and cloud-based Google Sheets, allowing for authentication, reading, writing, and management of sheets without needing to memorize API functions. |
| 6 | rk.network.graphs | 0.0.1 | brings powerful network analysis and visualization to the RKWard GUI. Built on top of the robust igraph, IRanges, and rgexf packages, this plugin suite bridges the gap between qualitative coding software (like QualCoder), raw adjacency matrices, and professional network visualization tools (like Gephi). |
| 7 | rk.forcats | 0.1.8 | An RKWard plugin package for factor manipulation using the 'forcats' library. |
| 8 | rk.dates | 0.0.3 | This package provides a single, powerful RKWard plugin designed to convert various numeric and character representations of dates and times into R's standard POSIXct (date-time) format. It simplifies the often-tricky process of handling date/time data imported from other statistical software or sources. |
| 9 | rk.rmd | 0.0.1 | rk.rmd brings a visual, intuitive boilerplate generator for R Markdown directly to the RKWard GUI. Stop struggling with complex YAML syntax, LaTeX preamble configurations, or trying to remember how to properly link authors to multiple institutions in APA format. |
| 10 | rk.ctables | 0.0.2 | rk.ctables is an RKWard plugin that brings the power of SPSS-style "Custom Tables" (CTABLES) to R. Powered by the [expss](https://gdemin.github.io/expss/) package, it allows you to build complex hierarchical tables using a simple drag-and-drop interface, bridging the gap for users migrating from SPSS to R |
| 11 | rk.codebook | 0.0.2 | rk.codebook generates professional HTML data dictionaries directly within RKWard. It bridges the gap between RKWard's internal variable labels and standard R reporting tools (powered by sjPlot), allowing you to create instant "Codebooks" for your datasets. |
| 12 | rk.class.lists | 0.0.2 | This package provides a suite of RKWard plugins designed to simplify the manipulation of R object classes and data structures. It offers a graphical interface for coercing objects (e.g., converting a matrix to a data frame), changing vector types (e.g., numeric to factor), and performing complex list operations (creating, appending, and extracting elements). |
| 13 | rk.bayesian | 0.0.2 | It is an external plug-in for RKWard that introduces a full suite of Bayesian statistical tests powered by the `BayesFactor` package. It is designed to provide "Jamovi-like" output, including Bayes Factors, posterior effect size estimates, descriptive statistics, and visualization plots. |
| 14 | rk.correspondence | 0.0.1 | rk.correspondence brings modern, visually appealing multivariate statistics to the RKWard GUI. Powered by the industry-standard FactoMineR and factoextra packages, this plugin provides an intuitive, "R Commander-style" interface to compute and visualize Simple and Multiple Correspondence Analysis without writing a single line of code. |
| 15 | rk.text.mining | 0.0.1 | rk.text.mining brings a complete, user-friendly text mining pipeline to the RKWard GUI. Powered by the industry-standard tm (Text Mining) and SnowballC packages, this plugin suite allows researchers to import text documents, clean corpora, extract term frequencies, and discover word associations without writing a single line of complex R code |
| 16 | rk.map.globalities | 0.0.3 | Is a specialized spatial data downloader for RKWard. While its sibling plugin (rk.map.localities) focuses on high-resolution municipalities, this plugin focuses on the Big Picture: Continents, Subregions, and the World. |
| 17 | rk.cartographr | 0.1.2 | An RKWard plugin package for creating beautiful maps using the cartographr R package. This plugin provides a graphical user interface (GUI) to fetch data from OpenStreetMap and generate customizable map plots directly within RKWard. |
| 18 | rk.aiken.v | 0.02.9 | An RKWard plugin to calculate Aiken's coefficients for content validity (V) and homogeneity (H). |
| 19 | rk.names.labels | 0.0.5 | A plugin package to clean and create names and labels of variables of a data.frame or manipulate names in a list in the Rkward GUI. |
| 20 | rk.stringr | 0.1.1 | An RKWard plugin for string manipulation using the 'stringr' library. |
| 21 | rk.dplyr | 0.1.4 | An RKWard plugin for data table combination and manipulation using the 'dplyr' library. |
| 22 | rk.janitor | 0.0.2 | This package provides a suite of RKWard plugins that create a graphical user interface for the **[janitor](https://github.com/sfirke/janitor)** R package. It implements a "Inspect -> Clean -> Validate" workflow, allowing users to sanitize dataframes, manage duplicates, and create publication-ready frequency tables without writing code. |
| 23 | rk.lubridate | 0.0.5 | This package provides a suite of RKWard plugins that create a graphical user interface for the lubridate R package. It simplifies working with dates and times by providing tools for parsing, formatting, arithmetic, and interval analysis without memorizing format codes or function names. |
| 24 | rk.apyramid | 0.1.3 | Provides a graphical interface for the {apyramid} package within RKWard. It allows users to create publication-quality population pyramids from both standard data frames and complex survey design objects (svydesign) with minimal effort. |
| 25 | rk.gtsummary | 0.1.3 | An RKWard plugin to generate summary tables using the 'gtsummary' package, supporting both standard data.frames (tbl_summary) and survey design objects (tbl_svysummary). |
| 26 | rk.map.localities | 0.0.3 | Is a comprehensive spatial data manager for RKWard. While its core feature is connecting to the high-resolution GADM database (via geodata) to download Admin Level 2 boundaries (Municipalities, Counties), version 0.0.2 expands its capabilities to include importing, exporting, and merging spatial objects. |
| 27 | rk.rnaturalearth | 0.1.5 | Is a user-friendly wrapper for the rnaturalearth, sf, and ggspatial packages within RKWard. It allows users to generate high-quality administrative Choropleth maps (heat maps based on regions) without needing complex GIS knowledge or shapefile management. |
| 28 | rk.survey.wrangling | 0.1.4 | rk.survey.wrangling extends RKWard's capabilities to handle complex survey designs (svydesign objects). It leverages the {srvyr} package to apply modern, "tidy" manipulation verbs (like mutate, group_by, and across) to survey data while automatically preserving sampling weights, stratification, and variance estimation parameters. |
| 29 | rk.storytelling.data | 0.3.0 | Brings the principles of Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic's *"Storytelling with Data" (SWD)* to the RKWard GUI. It provides a specialized collection of `ggplot2` wrappers designed to reduce cognitive load |
| 30 | rk.storytelling.survey | 0.1.0 | Applies the principles of Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic's "Storytelling with Data" (SWD) to complex survey data. By integrating the power of the survey and lemon packages, it provides a specialized collection of RKWard plugins designed to communicate weighted results (Means and Totals) with clarity, precision, and professional aesthetics. |
| 31 | rk.fastdummies | 0.0.1 | Extends RKWard's data wrangling capabilities by providing a graphical interface for the {fastDummies} package. It allows users to quickly create dummy variables (one-hot encoding) from character or factor variables. Uniquely, this plugin supports both standard data.frame objects and complex survey designs (svydesign), ensuring that your weighted data structure remains intact during transformation. |
| 32 | rk.data.wrangling | 0.1.3 | rk.data.wrangling brings modern, "tidy" data manipulation tools to the RKWard GUI. It provides a user-friendly interface for the powerful dplyr package, allowing users to perform complex batch operations—transformations, recoding, and scoring—on multiple variables simultaneously without writing complex code. |
| 33 | rk.ggsurvey | 0.1.9 | A plugin package analyze complex survey designs with custom plugins and the 'ggsurvey' package. |
| 34 | rk.pivot.reshape | 0.01.10 | An RKWard plugin to reshape data by pivoting it longer or wider using functions from the 'tidyr' package. |
| 35 | rk.cSplit | 0.01.10 | An RKWard plugin to split concatenated columns into a long or wide format using the cSplit() function from the 'splitstackshape' package. |
| 36 | rk.mult.resp | 0.0.4 | This package provides a suite of RKWard plugins for analyzing Multiple Response Sets (also known as "Check-all-that-apply" questions). Powered by the expss package, it brings SPSS-style tables and logic to RKWard, allowing you to define, tabulate, and cross-tabulate complex survey data (including survey weights) without writing code. |
| 37 | rk.svyplot | 0.0.2 | This package provides an RKWard GUI front-end for the base graphics plotting functions included in the powerful survey package. It allows users to create survey-weighted plots, which can be more representative than standard plots, without writing R code. |
| 38 | rk.questionr | 0.4.8 | A plugin package to analyze complex survey designs with custom plugins and the 'questionr' package. |
| 39 | rk.survey.design | 0.8.2 | A plugin package to create and analyze complex survey designs using the 'survey' package. |
| 40 | rk.transpose.df | 0.01.5 | An RKWard plugin to transpose a data frame, turning rows into columns and columns into rows. |
| 41 | rk.psych | 0.0.1 | Is a RKWard plug-in that consolidates frequentist statistical tests, assumption checks, effect sizes, and visualizations into single "All-in-One" dialogs. |
| 42 | rk.weibull | 0.0.1 | Is an external plug-in for RKWard that brings industrial-grade Reliability Engineering tools to the RKWard environment. It interfaces with the open-source `WeibullR` package to perform Life Data Analysis (Weibull Analysis) and Warranty Prediction, serving as a free alternative to software like ReliaSoft Weibull or Minitab's Reliability module. |
| 43 | rk.six.sigma | 0.0.1 | It is designed to bridge the gap between open-source R statistics and commercial quality control software like Minitab or Bluesky Statistics. It provides a user-friendly GUI for performing Measurement System Analysis (MSA) and Process Capability studies, leveraging the power of the `SixSigma`, `irr`, and `MASS` packages. |
| 44 | rk.lookup | 0.0.1 | An RKWard plugin for looking up values using the 'lookup' package. Features a single interface for both Vector-based lookup and Excel-style Vlookup. |
| 45 | rk.doe | 0.0.1 | An RKWard plugin for generating Full Factorial, Fractional Factorial, and Response Surface designs using 'DoE.base, FrF2.'. Design Generation: Create Full Factorial, Fractional Factorial, and Response Surface designs and specialized ANOVA and interaction plots for experimental designs. |
| 46 | rk.lavaan | 0.0.1 | It is an RKWard plugin that provides a graphical interface for lavaan (Latent Variable Analysis), the gold standard for Structural Equation Modeling in R. It allows researchers to specify models using standard syntax, fit them using various estimators, and visualize the results using semPlot package. |
| 47 | rk.qcc | 0.0.1 | It is an RKWard plugin that provides a graphical interface for the [qcc](https://cran.r-project.org/package=qcc) package. It enables industrial engineers and data analysts to create standard Statistical Process Control (SPC) charts and perform Capability Analysis without writing R code. |
| 48 | rk.survival | 0.0.1 | Modern Survival Analysis for RKWard upgrades the survival analysis capabilities of RKWard by integrating the powerful survival and survminer It allows users to perform rigorous survival analysis and generate publication-quality, `ggplot2`-based visualizations (Kaplan-Meier curves, Forest plots, and Diagnostic plots) via a simple GUI. |
| 49 | rk.tidyr | 0.0.3 | This package provides a suite of RKWard plugins that create a graphical user interface for data manipulation using the powerful `tidyr`, `dplyr`, and `tibble` libraries. It is designed to help users reshape data, handle missing values, and manage nested data structures—core tasks for achieving "Tidy Data"—without writing complex code manually. |
| 50 | rk.gsub.sub | 0.0.7 | RKWard GUI for sub() and gsub() to find and replace patterns in character vectors. |
State of development
RKWard is under constant development, with periodic releases of new versions and add-ons contributed by its users. Currently, its developers already offer a stable version for Windows systems along with KDE.2
References
References
- Rödiger, Stefan; Friedrichsmeier, Thomas; Kapat, Prasenjit; Michalke, Meik (2012-06-30). "RKWard: A Comprehensive Graphical User Interface and Integrated Development Environment for Statistical Analysis with R". Journal of Statistical Software. 49 (9): 1–34. doi:10.18637/jss.v049.i09.
- "RKWard". RKWard. Retrieved 2025-11-26.