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theme

Set theme elements


Description

Use this function to modify theme settings.

Usage

theme(..., complete = FALSE, validate = TRUE)

Arguments

...

a list of element name, element pairings that modify the existing theme.

complete

set this to TRUE if this is a complete theme, such as the one returned by theme_grey(). Complete themes behave differently when added to a ggplot object.

validate

TRUE to run validate_element, FALSE to bypass checks.

Details

Theme elements can inherit properties from other theme elements. For example, axis.title.x inherits from axis.title, which in turn inherits from text. All text elements inherit directly or indirectly from text; all lines inherit from line, and all rectangular objects inherit from rect.

For more examples of modifying properties using inheritance, %+replace%.

To see a graphical representation of the inheritance tree, see the last example below.

Theme elements

The individual theme elements are:

line all line elements (element_line)
rect all rectangular elements (element_rect)
text all text elements (element_text)
title all title elements: plot, axes, legends (element_text; inherits from text)
aspect.ratio aspect ratio of the panel
axis.title label of axes (element_text; inherits from text)
axis.title.x x axis label (element_text; inherits from axis.title)
axis.title.y y axis label (element_text; inherits from axis.title)
axis.text tick labels along axes (element_text; inherits from text)
axis.text.x x axis tick labels (element_text; inherits from axis.text)
axis.text.y y axis tick labels (element_text; inherits from axis.text)
axis.ticks tick marks along axes (element_line; inherits from line)
axis.ticks.x x axis tick marks (element_line; inherits from axis.ticks)
axis.ticks.y y axis tick marks (element_line; inherits from axis.ticks)
axis.ticks.length length of tick marks (unit)
axis.line lines along axes (element_line; inherits from line)
axis.line.x line along x axis (element_line; inherits from axis.line)
axis.line.y line along y axis (element_line; inherits from axis.line)
legend.background background of legend (element_rect; inherits from rect)
legend.margin extra space added around legend (unit)
legend.key background underneath legend keys (element_rect; inherits from rect)
legend.key.size size of legend keys (unit; inherits from legend.key.size)
legend.key.height key background height (unit; inherits from legend.key.size)
legend.key.width key background width (unit; inherits from legend.key.size)
legend.text legend item labels (element_text; inherits from text)
legend.text.align alignment of legend labels (number from 0 (left) to 1 (right))
legend.title title of legend (element_text; inherits from title)
legend.title.align alignment of legend title (number from 0 (left) to 1 (right))
legend.position the position of legends ("none", "left", "right", "bottom", "top", or two-element numeric vector)
legend.direction layout of items in legends ("horizontal" or "vertical")
legend.justification anchor point for positioning legend inside plot ("center" or two-element numeric vector)
legend.box arrangement of multiple legends ("horizontal" or "vertical")
legend.box.just justification of each legend within the overall bounding box, when there are multiple legends ("top", "bottom", "left", or "right")
panel.background background of plotting area, drawn underneath plot (element_rect; inherits from rect)
panel.border border around plotting area, drawn on top of plot so that it covers tick marks and grid lines. This should be used with fill=NA (element_rect; inherits from rect)
panel.margin margin around facet panels (unit)
panel.margin.x horizontal margin around facet panels (unit; inherits from panel.margin)
panel.margin.y vertical margin around facet panels (unit; inherits from panel.margin)
panel.grid grid lines (element_line; inherits from line)
panel.grid.major major grid lines (element_line; inherits from panel.grid)
panel.grid.minor minor grid lines (element_line; inherits from panel.grid)
panel.grid.major.x vertical major grid lines (element_line; inherits from panel.grid.major)
panel.grid.major.y horizontal major grid lines (element_line; inherits from panel.grid.major)
panel.grid.minor.x vertical minor grid lines (element_line; inherits from panel.grid.minor)
panel.grid.minor.y horizontal minor grid lines (element_line; inherits from panel.grid.minor)
panel.ontop option to place the panel (background, gridlines) over the data layers. Usually used with a transparent or blank panel.background. (logical)
plot.background background of the entire plot (element_rect; inherits from rect)
plot.title plot title (text appearance) (element_text; inherits from title) left-aligned by default
plot.subtitle plot subtitle (text appearance) (element_text; inherits from title) left-aligned by default
plot.caption caption below the plot (text appearance) (element_text; inherits from title) right-aligned by default
plot.margin margin around entire plot (unit with the sizes of the top, right, bottom, and left margins)
strip.background background of facet labels (element_rect; inherits from rect)
strip.text facet labels (element_text; inherits from text)
strip.text.x facet labels along horizontal direction (element_text; inherits from strip.text)
strip.text.y facet labels along vertical direction (element_text; inherits from strip.text)
strip.switch.pad.grid space between strips and axes when strips are switched (unit)
strip.switch.pad.wrap space between strips and axes when strips are switched (unit)

See Also

Examples

p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, wt)) +
  geom_point()
p
p + theme(panel.background = element_rect(colour = "pink"))
p + theme_bw()

# Scatter plot of gas mileage by vehicle weight
p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg)) +
  geom_point()
# Calculate slope and intercept of line of best fit
coef(lm(mpg ~ wt, data = mtcars))
p + geom_abline(intercept = 37, slope = -5)
# Calculate correlation coefficient
with(mtcars, cor(wt, mpg, use = "everything", method = "pearson"))
#annotate the plot
p + geom_abline(intercept = 37, slope = -5) +
geom_text(data = data.frame(), aes(4.5, 30, label = "Pearson-R = -.87"))

# Change the axis labels
# Original plot
p
p + labs(x = "Vehicle Weight", y = "Miles per Gallon")
# Or
p + labs(x = "Vehicle Weight", y = "Miles per Gallon")

# Change title appearance
p <- p + labs(title = "Vehicle Weight-Gas Mileage Relationship")
# Set title to twice the base font size
p + theme(plot.title = element_text(size = rel(2)))
p + theme(plot.title = element_text(size = rel(2), colour = "blue"))

# Add a subtitle and adjust bottom margin
p + labs(title = "Vehicle Weight-Gas Mileage Relationship",
         subtitle = "You need to wrap long subtitleson manually") +
    theme(plot.subtitle = element_text(margin = margin(b = 20)))

# Changing plot look with themes
DF <- data.frame(x = rnorm(400))
m <- ggplot(DF, aes(x = x)) +
  geom_histogram()
# Default is theme_grey()
m
# Compare with
m + theme_bw()

# Manipulate Axis Attributes
m + theme(axis.line = element_line(size = 3, colour = "red", linetype = "dotted"))
m + theme(axis.text = element_text(colour = "blue"))
m + theme(axis.text.y = element_blank())
m + theme(axis.ticks = element_line(size = 2))
m + theme(axis.title.y = element_text(size = rel(1.5), angle = 90))
m + theme(axis.title.x = element_blank())
m + theme(axis.ticks.length = unit(.85, "cm"))

# Legend Attributes
z <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg)) +
  geom_point(aes(colour = factor(cyl)))
z
z + theme(legend.position = "none")
z + theme(legend.position = "bottom")
# Or use relative coordinates between 0 and 1
z + theme(legend.position = c(.5, .5))
# Add a border to the whole legend
z + theme(legend.background = element_rect(colour = "black"))
# Legend margin controls extra space around outside of legend:
z + theme(legend.background = element_rect(),
          legend.margin = unit(1, "cm"))
z + theme(legend.background = element_rect(),
          legend.margin = unit(0, "cm"))
# Or to just the keys
z + theme(legend.key = element_rect(colour = "black"))
z + theme(legend.key = element_rect(fill = "yellow"))
z + theme(legend.key.size = unit(2.5, "cm"))
z + theme(legend.text = element_text(size = 20, colour = "red", angle = 45))
z + theme(legend.title = element_text(face = "italic"))

# To change the title of the legend use the name argument
# in one of the scale options
z + scale_colour_brewer(name = "My Legend")
z + scale_colour_grey(name = "Number of \nCylinders")

# Panel and Plot Attributes
z + theme(panel.background = element_rect(fill = "black"))
z + theme(panel.border = element_rect(linetype = "dashed", colour = "black"))
z + theme(panel.grid.major = element_line(colour = "blue"))
z + theme(panel.grid.minor = element_line(colour = "red", linetype = "dotted"))
z + theme(panel.grid.major = element_line(size = 2))
z + theme(panel.grid.major.y = element_blank(),
          panel.grid.minor.y = element_blank())
z + theme(plot.background = element_rect())
z + theme(plot.background = element_rect(fill = "green"))

# Faceting Attributes
set.seed(4940)
dsmall <- diamonds[sample(nrow(diamonds), 1000), ]
k <- ggplot(dsmall, aes(carat, ..density..)) +
  geom_histogram(binwidth = 0.2) +
  facet_grid(. ~ cut)
k + theme(strip.background = element_rect(colour = "purple", fill = "pink",
                                          size = 3, linetype = "dashed"))
k + theme(strip.text.x = element_text(colour = "red", angle = 45, size = 10,
                                      hjust = 0.5, vjust = 0.5))
k + theme(panel.margin = unit(5, "lines"))
k + theme(panel.margin.y = unit(0, "lines"))

# Put gridlines on top
meanprice <- tapply(diamonds$price, diamonds$cut, mean)
cut <- factor(levels(diamonds$cut), levels = levels(diamonds$cut))
df <- data.frame(meanprice, cut)
g <- ggplot(df, aes(cut, meanprice)) + geom_bar(stat = "identity")
g + geom_bar(stat = "identity") +
    theme(panel.background = element_blank(),
          panel.grid.major.x = element_blank(),
          panel.grid.minor.x = element_blank(),
          panel.grid.minor.y = element_blank(),
          panel.ontop = TRUE)

# Modify a theme and save it
mytheme <- theme_grey() + theme(plot.title = element_text(colour = "red"))
p + mytheme

animint2

Animated Interactive Grammar of Graphics

v2020.9.18
GPL-3
Authors
Toby Hocking [aut, cre] (Original animint code), Hadley Wickham [aut] (Forked ggplot2 code), Winston Chang [aut] (Forked ggplot2 code), RStudio [cph] (Forked ggplot2 code), Nicholas Lewin-Koh [aut] (hexGrob), Martin Maechler [aut] (hexGrob), Randall Prium [aut] (cut_width), Susan VanderPlas [aut] (Animint GSOC 2013), Carson Sievert [aut] (Animint GSOC 2014), Kevin Ferris [aut] (Animint GSOC 2015), Jun Cai [aut] (Animint GSOC 2015), Faizan Khan [aut] (Animint GSOC 2016-2017), Vivek Kumar [aut] (Animint GSOC 2018), Himanshu Singh [aut] (Animint2 GSoC 2020)
Initial release

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