Skip to contents

ggplot2 Formatting: fmt_* and Themes

Source: vignettes/ggplot2_formatting.Rmd
ggplot2_formatting.Rmd

Base Plot

All examples build on this base plot:

p <- ggplot(iris, aes(Sepal.Length, Sepal.Width, color = Species)) +
  geom_point(size = 2)
p

fmt_plot() — Master Chaining

Chain multiple formatting operations in one call:

p |> fmt_plot(
  legend.position = "bottom",
  tag = "A",
  base_size = 14
)

fmt_tag() — Panel Labels 

p |> fmt_tag("A")

p |> fmt_tag("B", x = 0.95, y = 0.95, size = 16)

fmt_legend() — Legend Formatting 

p |> fmt_legend(position = "bottom", direction = "horizontal")

fmt_ref() — Reference Lines 

p |> fmt_ref(xintercept = 5.8, yintercept = 3.0)

# Multiple lines with colours
p |> fmt_ref(xintercept = c(5, 6, 7), color = c("red", "blue", "green"))

fmt_axis() — Axis Control 

# Hide x-axis (useful for multi-panel layouts)
p |> fmt_axis(x = FALSE)

fmt_strip() — Facet Strip Colours 

p_facet <- ggplot(iris, aes(Sepal.Length, Sepal.Width)) +
  geom_point() +
  facet_wrap(~Species)

p_facet |> fmt_strip(label_fill = c("#E41A1C", "#377EB8", "#4DAF4A"))

fmt_bg() — Background Stripes 

p |> fmt_bg(palette = "Paired", alpha = 0.1)

fmt_scale() — Axis Scales 

p |> fmt_scale(scale_x_list = list(limits = c(4, 8)),
               scale_y_list = list(limits = c(2, 4.5)))

fmt_boxplot() — Overlay Boxplot 

p_violin <- ggplot(iris, aes(Species, Sepal.Length, fill = Species)) +
  geom_violin()
p_violin |> fmt_boxplot()

Themes

theme_my() — Clean General Purpose 

p + theme_my()

theme_my() with custom base size 

p + theme_my(base_size = 16)

flatten_patchwork() — Flatten Nested Patchwork 

library(patchwork)
nested <- (p1 | p2) / (p3 | p4)
flat <- flatten_patchwork(nested)

Recursively flattens nested patchwork objects into a single-level list.