Unable to find file 'path/NA' when knitting to word_document2 using tbl_summary but works for PDF, HTML etc - r-markdown

Question

before you click "next", this is not a path file error.
I am building on a blogpost: https://labrtorian.com/2019/08/26/rmarkdown-template-that-manages-academic-affiliations/
It works well for scientific papers.
My problem is:
In Rmarkdown when calling a data frame I am returned with the error about not being able to find file 'path/NA'
---
output:
bookdown::word_document2:
pandoc_args:
- --reference-doc=Extras/Reference_Document.docx
keep_tex: TRUE
---
```{r MRE}
library(gtsummary)
a <- c(10,20,30,40)
b <- c('book', 'pen', 'textbook', 'pencil_case')
c <- c(TRUE,FALSE,TRUE,FALSE)
d <- c(2.5, 8, 10, 7)
df <- data.frame(a,b,c,d)
tbl_summary(df)
tbl_summary
which returns:
Error: could not find file '/Users/brianbrummer/Documents/Rstudio/Affilitations_template/NA'
Execution halted
So what gives? I would usually know how to fix a "path not found" error, but not a file...and the file is NA?
files referenced in YAML can be found:
https://github.com/bridaybrummer/author_affiliations_extras.git
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I did some digging and found the issue and a solution. First, if you update your yaml to call the reference document like this, you won't get the error any longer.
---
output:
word_document:
reference_doc: Reference_Document.docx
---
The issue was with the flextable package. If you're looking for community service points, you can post this reprex to their github page to alert them to the issue.
---
output:
word_document:
pandoc_args:
- --reference-doc=Reference_Document.docx
---
```{r MRE}
mtcars |>
flextable::flextable()
```