Thanks @jjallaire, I'm just starting learning R so this is all a bit new to me!

I have changed the template and csl references using the find_resource helper function, just as plos_article does it, I hope this is better now?

You should also run the tests locally (you can do this with devtools::test()). When I run your test I get this failure:

unused argument (csl = "/Users/jjallaire/packages/rticles/inst/rmarkdown/templates/mnras_article/resources/mnras.csl")
1: rmarkdown::render(testdoc) at /Users/jjallaire/packages/rticles/tests/testthat/test_formats.R:30
2: create_output_format(output_format$name, output_format$options)
3: do.call(output_format_func, options)

I think you want to call pdf_document_format() rather than pdf_document()

I am still unable to get this article format to actually work. Here is the error I get:

processing file: Untitled.Rmd
output file: Untitled.knit.md

tlmgr search --file --global '/example'
! LaTeX Error: File `example' not found.

Error: Failed to compile Untitled.tex. See Untitled.log for more info.
In addition: Warning message:
In parse_packages(logfile, quiet = c(TRUE, FALSE, FALSE)) :
  Failed to find a package that contains example
Execution halted

Oh I see -- it seems like the LaTeX environment is trying to pick up the example figure (example.png), but it assumes the .tex extension and fails due to some relative path.

I'll change the way figure is rendered in the skeleton (it's my understanding that including figures through knitr is preferred anyway?), hopefully this will fix it.

Sorry it keeps failing, the test has passed successfully for me.

The build fails for the same reason as previously:

Package pdftex.def Error: File `example.png' not found: using draft setting.

I have checked other templates, and for instance amq_article passes the Travis build while including figures from external files in skeleton. Similarly, there are no issues with the template locally. How do I include the example.png in the test render?

The tests have passed! Thank you for all your help -- let me know if there is anything else that needs fixing.