[Feature Request] `labs` for created plots #43

dtelad11 · 2018-03-15T15:46:18Z

Would it be possible to add a global labs function that will affect the created plot?

Title is straightforward, sometimes I have 3-4 figures and I want all of them to share one major title.
For X- and Y-axis labels, I often patchwork 4, 6, or 9 figures which have the same X- and Y-axis labels, I want to show one "big" label for each axis rather than many small labels.

Edit: As @thomasp85 points out below, plot_annotation takes care of this for the title, subtitle, and caption.

The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:

thomasp85 · 2018-03-15T18:24:41Z

plot_annotation() already solves this for title, subtitle and caption. I might consider adding axis titles to this as well...

dtelad11 · 2018-03-15T20:09:28Z

Thanks for the clarification. I updated the issue title and description accordingly.

slowkow · 2018-03-16T16:02:07Z

Thanks for opening this issue, and thanks for mentioning plot_annotation()!

It'd be great to see plot_annotation() in the README.md

Example

Here's why I prefer patchwork instead of gridExtra:

set.seed(42)
dat <- data.frame(
  x = rnorm(100),
  y = rnorm(100),
  z = rnorm(100),
  group = sample(c("A", "B"), size = 100, replace = TRUE)
)

library(ggplot2)

p1 <- ggplot(dat, aes(x, y, color = z)) +
  geom_point(size = 5) +
  labs(title = "Hello")

p2 <- ggplot(dat, aes(x, y, color = group)) +
  geom_point(size = 5) +
  theme(legend.position = "bottom")

Patchwork

library(patchwork)

p1 + p2 + plot_annotation(
  title = "patchwork",
  caption = "This is the caption.",
  theme = theme(
    plot.title = element_text(size = 20),
    plot.caption = element_text(size = 20)
  )
)

Notice the plot panels are perfectly aligned, and it is easy to change the theme of the title and caption with the theme() function.

gridExtra

library(gridExtra)

grid.arrange(
  p1, p2, ncol = 2,
  top = "gridExtra",
  bottom = "This is a caption."
)

Notice that the plot panels are not aligned, and you have to use gpar() to change the theme of the text.

Session info

devtools::session_info()
#> Session info -------------------------------------------------------------
#>  setting  value                       
#>  version  R version 3.4.4 (2018-03-15)
#>  system   x86_64, darwin17.4.0        
#>  ui       unknown                     
#>  language (EN)                        
#>  collate  en_US.UTF-8                 
#>  tz       America/New_York            
#>  date     2018-03-16
#> Packages -----------------------------------------------------------------
#>  package    * version    date       source                              
#>  backports    1.1.2      2017-12-13 CRAN (R 3.4.4)                      
#>  base       * 3.4.4      2018-03-16 local                               
#>  colorspace   1.3-2      2016-12-14 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  compiler     3.4.4      2018-03-16 local                               
#>  curl         3.1        2017-12-12 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  datasets   * 3.4.4      2018-03-16 local                               
#>  devtools     1.13.5     2018-02-18 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  digest       0.6.15     2018-01-28 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  evaluate     0.10.1     2017-06-24 CRAN (R 3.4.4)                      
#>  ggplot2    * 2.2.1.9000 2018-03-15 Github (thomasp85/ggplot2@f1ba983)  
#>  graphics   * 3.4.4      2018-03-16 local                               
#>  grDevices  * 3.4.4      2018-03-16 local                               
#>  grid         3.4.4      2018-03-16 local                               
#>  gridExtra  * 2.3        2017-09-09 CRAN (R 3.4.4)                      
#>  gtable       0.2.0      2016-02-26 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  htmltools    0.3.6      2017-04-28 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  httr         1.3.1      2017-08-20 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  knitr        1.20       2018-02-20 CRAN (R 3.4.4)                      
#>  labeling     0.3        2014-08-23 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  lazyeval     0.2.1      2017-10-29 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  magrittr     1.5        2014-11-22 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  memoise      1.1.0      2017-04-21 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  methods    * 3.4.4      2018-03-16 local                               
#>  mime         0.5        2016-07-07 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  munsell      0.4.3      2016-02-13 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  patchwork  * 0.0.1      2018-03-15 Github (thomasp85/patchwork@49e6ba4)
#>  pillar       1.2.1      2018-02-27 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  plyr         1.8.4      2016-06-08 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  R6           2.2.2      2017-06-17 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  Rcpp         0.12.16    2018-03-13 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  rlang        0.2.0.9000 2018-03-15 Github (tidyverse/rlang@1b81816)    
#>  rmarkdown    1.9        2018-03-01 CRAN (R 3.4.4)                      
#>  rprojroot    1.3-2      2018-01-03 CRAN (R 3.4.4)                      
#>  scales       0.5.0.9000 2018-03-15 Github (hadley/scales@d767915)      
#>  stats      * 3.4.4      2018-03-16 local                               
#>  stringi      1.1.7      2018-03-12 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  stringr      1.3.0      2018-02-19 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  tibble       1.4.2      2018-01-22 CRAN (R 3.4.3)                      
#>  tools        3.4.4      2018-03-16 local                               
#>  utils      * 3.4.4      2018-03-16 local                               
#>  withr        2.1.2      2018-03-15 Github (jimhester/withr@79d7b0d)    
#>  xml2         1.2.0      2018-01-24 CRAN (R 3.4.4)                      
#>  yaml         2.1.18     2018-03-08 CRAN (R 3.4.3)

thiagosfsilva · 2018-03-29T21:30:03Z

Came here to suggest this feature for axis titles, so count me in as +1

jackhump · 2018-04-27T13:29:42Z

+1 for adding this to the README. The plot_annotation() function is really handy so should be made clearer. Thanks for creating such a great package!

prosoitos · 2018-09-01T20:22:00Z

Huge fan of patchwork here and also hoping to see the option to have joint y axis for several plots.

Also agree that updating the README would be great.

Thanks @thomasp85 for the really cool work!

steveharoz · 2019-09-06T15:16:40Z

Documentation for plot_annotation() was added to the readme in c4545d5

JenspederM · 2019-12-04T13:03:02Z

I see that this issue has been closed. Does this mean that the feature (global labs) has been added or that it is no longer considered?

jaseeverett · 2020-01-07T23:04:52Z

Thanks @thomasp85 for this wonderful package.

I would love to see x and y labels added to the plot_annotation() function. Like @dtelad11, I regularly make sets of subplots with the same axes. A single label for each would be amazing.

Will this be forthcoming or have you closed this feature request because it is not feasible?

Thanks again

eipi10 · 2020-02-12T18:01:32Z

Just wanted to add another request for global x- and y-axis titles with plot_annotation. Several plots in a single column with a common x-axis is a frequent use case for me. At the moment, I typically do something like this:

library(tidyverse)
library(patchwork)

# Create list of plots with common x-axis column
# Remove all x-axis titles
pl = syms(c("disp", "hp", "wt")) %>% 
  map(~ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, !!.x, colour=cyl)) + 
        geom_point() +
        labs(x="Miles per Gallon") +
        theme(axis.title.x=element_blank()))

# Add back x-axis title to bottom plot
pl[[length(pl)]] = pl[[length(pl)]] + theme(axis.title.x=element_text())

# Lay out plots
pl %>% 
  wrap_plots(ncol=1) + 
  plot_layout(guides="collect") + 
  plot_annotation(title="Compare mpg against other variables")

Another option would be to use the caption as a kludge to get a global x-axis title, but this precludes using the caption feature for an actual caption and is hackish:

pl %>% 
  wrap_plots(ncol=1) + 
  plot_layout(guides="collect") + 
  plot_annotation(title="Compare mpg against other variables",
                  caption="Miles per Gallon", 
                  theme=theme(plot.caption=element_text(hjust=0.5, size=12, margin=margin(t=0))))

Would it be possible to add an option to create a global x-axis title (and/or global y-axis title) using plot_annotation()?

As another potential option, what about creating a "collect" option for x-axis and/or y-axis titles for cases where the same axis title is used in multiple plots. Something like this, where axis.title.x="collect" would strip the individual x-axis titles and add a single x-axis title at the bottom:

pl = syms(c("disp", "hp", "wt")) %>% 
  map(~ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, !!.x, colour=cyl)) + 
        geom_point() + 
        labs(x="Miles per Gallon"))

pl %>% 
  wrap_plots(ncol=1) + 
  plot_layout(guides="collect",
              axis.title.x="collect") + 
  plot_annotation(title="Compare mpg against other variables")

Maybe that's more trouble than it's worth, since such a feature would have to deal with cases where a user chooses "collect" even when each plot has a different x-axis title, or in cases where the plot layout has more than one column. Even then, in the first case you could return a warning. In the second, assuming all plots in a given column have the same x-axis title, "collect" could operate by column.

melissagwolf · 2020-04-01T05:00:01Z

I would find a common axis useful as well!

benscarlson · 2020-04-08T14:10:23Z

Hello, I'd just like to add my support for global axes labels!

Right now I individually hide axes labels for certain panels so that it appears as if there is global axes labels, but this is a cumbersome, manual process. For example, if I have p1 + p2 + p3, I hide all y labels except for p1, and hide all x labels except for p2. It would be much cleaner to have global axes labels.

teaguescott · 2020-06-16T21:44:11Z

Agreed, global axes would be great.

I really like the simplicity of patchwork. It's a bummer to have to revert to using another package to draw multiple plots together...

schnebeni · 2020-07-06T16:00:08Z

I would also love if a global axis option was added :c

stemangiola · 2020-07-13T05:34:52Z

+1!

GeorgeAthana · 2020-07-30T04:13:58Z

Yes please to a global axis option

msto · 2020-08-18T17:13:19Z

Based on this stackoverflow post, I've found you can add the same axis label to every subplot with the following:

patchwork_object & 
  xlab("xlabel") &
  ylab("ylabel")

@thomasp85 it's not super clear to me why the ampersand works here instead of the usual plus sign, maybe you could elaborate?

I agree with the posters above that it would still be helpful to update plot_annotation() to permit adding a single label to each axis, like you'd see with ggplot's facet_wrap() + xlab(). One, the figures would be less cluttered without redundant axis labels on each subplot, and two, it would be more discoverable than the ampersand syntax.

mingsu · 2020-09-15T15:12:16Z

I hacked a function to create global x label and y label, in an ugly way. I post here for anyone's interest.

function

add_global_label <- function(pwobj, Xlab = NULL, Ylab = NULL, Xgap = 0.03, Ygap = 0.03, ...) {
    ylabgrob <- patchwork::plot_spacer()
    if (!is.null(Ylab)) {
        ylabgrob <- ggplot() +
            geom_text(aes(x = .5, y = .5), label = Ylab, angle = 90, ...) +
            theme_void()
    }
    if (!is.null(Xlab)) {
        xlabgrob <- ggplot() +
            geom_text(aes(x = .5, y = .5), label = Xlab, ...) +
            theme_void()
    }
    if (!is.null(Ylab) & is.null(Xlab)) {
        return((ylabgrob + patchworkGrob(pwobj)) + 
            patchwork::plot_layout(widths = 100 * c(Ygap, 1 - Ygap)))
    }
    if (is.null(Ylab) & !is.null(Xlab)) {
        return((ylabgrob + pwobj) + 
            (xlabgrob) +
            patchwork::plot_layout(heights = 100 * c(1 - Xgap, Xgap),
                                   widths = c(0, 100),
                                   design = "
                                   AB
                                   CC
                                   "
            ))
    }
    if (!is.null(Ylab) & !is.null(Xlab)) {
        return((ylabgrob + pwobj) + 
            (xlabgrob) +
            patchwork::plot_layout(heights = 100 * c(1 - Xgap, Xgap),
                                   widths = 100 * c(Ygap, 1 - Ygap),
                                   design = "
                                   AB
                                   CC
                                   "
            ))
    }
    return(pwobj)
}

How to use:

# example 
require(ggplot2)
require(patchwork)
     p1 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_point(aes(mpg, disp))
     p2 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_boxplot(aes(gear, disp, group = gear))
     p3 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_bar(aes(gear)) + facet_wrap(~cyl)
     p4 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_bar(aes(carb))
     p5 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_violin(aes(cyl, mpg, group = cyl))
    
     add_global_label((p1 + p2 + p3 + p4 + p5),
                                Ylab = "Global Y title",
                         #       size = 8,
                         #      Ygap = 0.04
)

# or use pipe
require(magrittr)
(p1 + p2 + p3 + p4 + p5) %>%
add_global_label(Ylab = "Global Y title",
                          #       size = 8,
                         #      Ygap = 0.04
)

basilkhuder · 2020-09-16T18:55:29Z

I hacked a function to create global x label and y label, in an ugly way. I post here for anyone's interest.

function

add_global_label <- function(pwobj, Xlab = NULL, Ylab = NULL, Xgap = 0.03, Ygap = 0.03, ...) {
    ylabgrob <- patchwork::plot_spacer()
    if (!is.null(Ylab)) {
        ylabgrob <- ggplot() +
            geom_text(aes(x = .5, y = .5), label = Ylab, angle = 90, ...) +
            theme_void()
    }
    if (!is.null(Xlab)) {
        xlabgrob <- ggplot() +
            geom_text(aes(x = .5, y = .5), label = Xlab, ...) +
            theme_void()
    }
    if (!is.null(Ylab) & is.null(Xlab)) {
        return((ylabgrob + patchworkGrob(pwobj)) + 
            patchwork::plot_layout(widths = 100 * c(Ygap, 1 - Ygap)))
    }
    if (is.null(Ylab) & !is.null(Xlab)) {
        return((ylabgrob + pwobj) + 
            (xlabgrob) +
            patchwork::plot_layout(heights = 100 * c(1 - Xgap, Xgap),
                                   widths = c(0, 100),
                                   design = "
                                   AB
                                   CC
                                   "
            ))
    }
    if (!is.null(Ylab) & !is.null(Xlab)) {
        return((ylabgrob + pwobj) + 
            (xlabgrob) +
            patchwork::plot_layout(heights = 100 * c(1 - Xgap, Xgap),
                                   widths = 100 * c(Ygap, 1 - Ygap),
                                   design = "
                                   AB
                                   CC
                                   "
            ))
    }
    return(pwobj)
}

How to use:

# example 
require(ggplot2)
require(patchwork)
     p1 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_point(aes(mpg, disp))
     p2 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_boxplot(aes(gear, disp, group = gear))
     p3 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_bar(aes(gear)) + facet_wrap(~cyl)
     p4 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_bar(aes(carb))
     p5 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_violin(aes(cyl, mpg, group = cyl))
    
     add_global_label((p1 + p2 + p3 + p4 + p5),
                                Ylab = "Global Y title",
                         #       size = 8,
                         #      Ygap = 0.04
)

# or use pipe
require(magrittr)
(p1 + p2 + p3 + p4 + p5) %>%
add_global_label(Ylab = "Global Y title",
                          #       size = 8,
                         #      Ygap = 0.04
)

This is excellent! Thank you!

Cameron-Fairfield · 2020-10-15T13:47:56Z

I hacked a function to create global x label and y label, in an ugly way. I post here for anyone's interest.

function

add_global_label <- function(pwobj, Xlab = NULL, Ylab = NULL, Xgap = 0.03, Ygap = 0.03, ...) {
    ylabgrob <- patchwork::plot_spacer()
    if (!is.null(Ylab)) {
        ylabgrob <- ggplot() +
            geom_text(aes(x = .5, y = .5), label = Ylab, angle = 90, ...) +
            theme_void()
    }
    if (!is.null(Xlab)) {
        xlabgrob <- ggplot() +
            geom_text(aes(x = .5, y = .5), label = Xlab, ...) +
            theme_void()
    }
    if (!is.null(Ylab) & is.null(Xlab)) {
        return((ylabgrob + patchworkGrob(pwobj)) + 
            patchwork::plot_layout(widths = 100 * c(Ygap, 1 - Ygap)))
    }
    if (is.null(Ylab) & !is.null(Xlab)) {
        return((ylabgrob + pwobj) + 
            (xlabgrob) +
            patchwork::plot_layout(heights = 100 * c(1 - Xgap, Xgap),
                                   widths = c(0, 100),
                                   design = "
                                   AB
                                   CC
                                   "
            ))
    }
    if (!is.null(Ylab) & !is.null(Xlab)) {
        return((ylabgrob + pwobj) + 
            (xlabgrob) +
            patchwork::plot_layout(heights = 100 * c(1 - Xgap, Xgap),
                                   widths = 100 * c(Ygap, 1 - Ygap),
                                   design = "
                                   AB
                                   CC
                                   "
            ))
    }
    return(pwobj)
}

How to use:

# example 
require(ggplot2)
require(patchwork)
     p1 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_point(aes(mpg, disp))
     p2 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_boxplot(aes(gear, disp, group = gear))
     p3 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_bar(aes(gear)) + facet_wrap(~cyl)
     p4 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_bar(aes(carb))
     p5 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_violin(aes(cyl, mpg, group = cyl))
    
     add_global_label((p1 + p2 + p3 + p4 + p5),
                                Ylab = "Global Y title",
                         #       size = 8,
                         #      Ygap = 0.04
)

# or use pipe
require(magrittr)
(p1 + p2 + p3 + p4 + p5) %>%
add_global_label(Ylab = "Global Y title",
                          #       size = 8,
                         #      Ygap = 0.04
)

Thanks for this, really useful code. Couple of issues that are easy to overcome with it. First is that if using plot_layout() from patchwork for other purposes must be done after e.g.

require(magrittr)
(p1 + p2 + p3 + p4 + p5) %>%
add_global_label(Ylab = "Global Y title",
                          #       size = 8,
                         #      Ygap = 0.04
 ) + plot_layout(guides = "collect")

Second more a comment for other to be aware. If plots have been passed through coord_flip then this function treats original Y axis as X-axis so to change the original Y-axis need to use Xlab argument

steveb-123 · 2020-11-16T15:07:49Z

+1 for a complete implementation of this functionality

The hack fom @mingsu, while super useful (thank you!) does not align with the plot area only, but the full plot objects (including axis labels).

I would expect the "count" to be aligned vertically at the gap between the two plots:

library(tidyverse)
library(patchwork)

source("./add_global_label.R")

zoo <- tibble(
  skin = c("a", "b", "b", "a", "c"),
  axis_title = c("a", "a", "a", "big word", "a"))


p1 <- ggplot(zoo, aes(x=axis_title)) + geom_bar() +
  theme(axis.title.y=element_blank(), axis.text.x = element_text(angle=90))
p2 <- ggplot(zoo, aes(x=skin)) + geom_bar() +
  theme(axis.title.y=element_blank(), axis.text.x = element_blank(), axis.title.x = element_blank())

wrap_plots(p2,p1,ncol=1) %>% add_global_label(Ylab="count", Ygap=0.05)
ggsave("offset_axis.png", width=7, height=7, units="cm")

MattCowgill · 2021-03-05T00:14:31Z

I agree this would be a very useful feature. It's unclear to me why the issue was closed.

tjebo · 2021-03-24T10:00:27Z

another workaround is offered here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/66778622/7941188

lpmorenoc · 2021-05-12T21:55:02Z

One option apparently is wrap_elements https://patchwork.data-imaginist.com/articles/guides/assembly.html
So for the y label it could be used wrap_elements(grid::textGrob('Text on left side')) + p1
However, it did not work for me because it creates a lot of space between my wrap_plots and the text:

Even when we define different widths with plot_playout like the code below:

name1 <- grid::textGrob('Text on left side', rot=90)
name2 <-grid::textGrob('Text on the bottom')
a <-(wrap_elements(name1, clip=F) | 
    wrap_plots(Fig8a,fig8b,fig8c,fig8d,fig8e,fig8f, ncol=3)) 
a+ 
  plot_layout(guides='collect', widths=c(.001, 1) ) &
  theme(legend.position='bottom',legend.title=element_text(face="bold", size=16),
        legend.text = element_text(size=14),
        legend.background = element_rect(linetype = "solid", colour="black"),
        plot.margin=unit(c(0.5,0.5,0,0),"cm")) &
  xlab("") & ylab("")

MarinkavP · 2021-06-21T12:25:08Z

Despite the different options to get a centered x-axis it would still be nice to have a separate function for this. The mentioned solutions don't work well with the auto-tag feature.

kmichelson · 2021-09-02T18:10:58Z

I have to agree - having global axis labels would be extremely useful, and makes sense in the plot_annotation parameters.

nipnipj · 2021-10-28T19:19:46Z

Is Global axis ready?

brunomioto · 2022-03-28T17:55:35Z

+1

MattCowgill · 2022-03-28T21:20:37Z

@thomasp85 would you consider a PR that implemented this?

kinnaryshah · 2023-02-13T21:55:22Z

I agree, this would be a very helpful feature.

julianbarg · 2024-07-23T19:08:04Z

This has been implemented in #337

thomasp85 closed this as completed Nov 14, 2019

jonspring mentioned this issue Dec 26, 2019

Centering plot_annotation #143

Closed

mingsu mentioned this issue Jan 7, 2021

Axes-Labels with plot_annotation()? #230

Closed

[Feature Request] labs for created plots #43

[Feature Request] labs for created plots #43

Comments

dtelad11 commented Mar 15, 2018 • edited Loading

thomasp85 commented Mar 15, 2018

dtelad11 commented Mar 15, 2018

slowkow commented Mar 16, 2018

Example

Patchwork

gridExtra

thiagosfsilva commented Mar 29, 2018

jackhump commented Apr 27, 2018

prosoitos commented Sep 1, 2018 • edited Loading

steveharoz commented Sep 6, 2019

JenspederM commented Dec 4, 2019

jaseeverett commented Jan 7, 2020

eipi10 commented Feb 12, 2020 • edited Loading

melissagwolf commented Apr 1, 2020

benscarlson commented Apr 8, 2020

teaguescott commented Jun 16, 2020

schnebeni commented Jul 6, 2020

stemangiola commented Jul 13, 2020

GeorgeAthana commented Jul 30, 2020

msto commented Aug 18, 2020

mingsu commented Sep 15, 2020 • edited Loading

function

How to use:

basilkhuder commented Sep 16, 2020

function

How to use:

Cameron-Fairfield commented Oct 15, 2020 • edited Loading

function

How to use:

steveb-123 commented Nov 16, 2020 • edited Loading

MattCowgill commented Mar 5, 2021

tjebo commented Mar 24, 2021

lpmorenoc commented May 12, 2021 • edited Loading

MarinkavP commented Jun 21, 2021

kmichelson commented Sep 2, 2021

nipnipj commented Oct 28, 2021

brunomioto commented Mar 28, 2022

MattCowgill commented Mar 28, 2022

kinnaryshah commented Feb 13, 2023

julianbarg commented Jul 23, 2024

[Feature Request] `labs` for created plots #43

[Feature Request] `labs` for created plots #43

dtelad11 commented Mar 15, 2018 •

edited

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prosoitos commented Sep 1, 2018 •

edited

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eipi10 commented Feb 12, 2020 •

edited

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mingsu commented Sep 15, 2020 •

edited

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Cameron-Fairfield commented Oct 15, 2020 •

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steveb-123 commented Nov 16, 2020 •

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lpmorenoc commented May 12, 2021 •

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