What Packages Are Included in the quanteda Family?

Updated

The quanteda family consists of four packages: quanteda (core natural language processing and textual data management), quanteda.textmodels (text models and supporting textmodel_*() functions), quanteda.textstats (statistics for textual data via textstat_*() functions), and quanteda.textplots (plots for textual data via textplot_*() functions). The split into modular packages was completed with the v3 release, following a trend that began with v2.

The four packages and what each one does

Package Role Function prefix
quanteda Core NLP and textual data management —
quanteda.textmodels Text models and supporting functions textmodel_*()
quanteda.textstats Statistics for textual data textstat_*()
quanteda.textplots Plots for textual data textplot_*()

quanteda (core)

Contains all of the core natural language processing and textual data management functions. This is the package you install and load first; the other three build on it.

quanteda.textmodels

Contains all of the text models and supporting functions, namely the textmodel_*() functions. This was split from the main package with the v2 release.

quanteda.textstats

Contains statistics for textual data, namely the textstat_*() functions. Split with the v3 release.

quanteda.textplots

Contains plots for textual data, namely the textplot_*() functions. Also split with the v3 release.

Why the family is split this way

The modular structure means you only load the components you need for a given analysis. If you are doing corpus management and tokenisation, the core package is enough. If you move on to scaling, classification, or dictionary-based models, you add quanteda.textmodels. Descriptive statistics and visualisation live in their own packages.

The naming convention reinforces this: each satellite package uses a consistent function prefix (textmodel_, textstat_, textplot_), so you can tell at a glance which package a function belongs to.

Practical implications

  • Installation: you can install the core package alone, or install the satellites alongside it when your workflow requires them.
  • Version history: the split happened progressively — textmodels at v2, textstats and textplots at v3 — so older tutorials that reference these functions inside quanteda itself predate the modular layout.
  • Further releases: the project has stated it is working on additional package releases beyond these four.