ggscribe

The objective of ggscribe is to provide annotation helper functions for publication-quality ‘ggplot2’ visualisation.

Note:

• To avoid namespace collisions, it is recommended to not load the package, but instead refer to each function with the package name (e.g. ggscribe::sec_axis_text().
• sec_axis_text adjusts space in the plot, whereas axis_* functions do not.
• axis_ticks, axis_text and axis_bracket require (1) a globally set theme with explicit panel dimensions and (2) coord_cartesian(clip = "off")
• panel_shade must be before geoms.
• Where you require annotation text along a axis with different angles etc, use a combination of sec_axis_text and axis_* functions. The sec_axis_text function should include the annotation that requires the maximum space that you want the plot to adjust to.

Installation

Install from CRAN, or the development version from GitHub.

install.packages("ggscribe")
pak::pak("davidhodge931/ggscribe")

Example

ggscribe provides various axis and panel annotation helper functions.

library(ggplot2)
library(dplyr)

set_theme(
  ggrefine::theme_grey(
    panel_heights = rep(unit(50, "mm"), 100),
    panel_widths = rep(unit(75, "mm"), 100),
  )
)

mtcars |>
  ggplot(aes(x = wt, y = mpg, colour = as.factor(gear), fill = as.factor(gear))) +
  scale_colour_discrete(palette = blends::multiply(get_theme()$palette.colour.discrete)) +
  #clip = "off" is required for axis_text, axis_ticks and axis_bracket
  coord_cartesian(clip = "off") +
  #reference lines and shade
  ggscribe::reference_line(xintercept = 2.4) +
  ggscribe::reference_line(yintercept = 12)  +
  ggscribe::panel_shade(
    xmin = 4,
    xmax = 5,
  ) +
  #top axis
  scale_x_continuous(
    sec.axis = ggscribe::sec_axis_text(
      breaks = c(mean(c(4, 5))),
      labels = c("Range"),
      guide = ggscribe::guide_sec_axis_text(
        angle = 90,
      )
    )
  ) +
  ggscribe::axis_bracket(
    position = "top",
    breaks = c(4, 5),
  ) +
  ggscribe::axis_text(
    position = "top",
    breaks = c(2.4),
    labels = c("Threshold"),
  ) +
  #right axis
  ggscribe::axis_text(
    position = "right",
    breaks = 12,
    labels = "Threshold",
  ) +
  #geom
  geom_point() +
  #annotations fit plot
  theme(plot.background = element_rect(colour = "grey92"))

And a function to ensure text is easily coloured for contrast on a fill aesthetic.

ggwidth::set_equiwidth(equiwidth = 1.75)

mtcars |>
  count(cyl, am) |>
  mutate(
    am = if_else(am == 0, "Automatic", "Manual"),
    cyl = as.factor(cyl)
  ) |>
  ggplot(aes(x = am, y = n, colour = cyl, fill = cyl, label = n)) +
  geom_col(
    position = position_dodge2(preserve = "single", padding = 0.05),
    width = ggwidth::get_width(n = 2, n_dodge = 3),
  ) +
  scale_fill_discrete(palette = jumble::jumble) +
  scale_colour_discrete(palette = blends::multiply(jumble::jumble)) +
  geom_text(
    mapping = ggscribe::aes_contrast(), # or aes(!!!ggscribe::aes_contrast()),
    position = position_dodge2(
      width = ggwidth::get_width(n = 2, n_dodge = 3),
      padding = 0.05,
      preserve = "single"),
    vjust = 1.33,
    show.legend = FALSE,
  ) +
  scale_y_continuous(expand = expansion(c(0, 0.05))) +
  ggrefine::modern(x_type = "discrete")

Other packages

This package is part of a group of related packages built to extend ggplot2.