CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rggplot2legend
overflowname
overflowname

Reputation: 2193

Is there a way to change the spacing between legend items in ggplot2?

Is there a way to change the spacing between legend items in ggplot2? I currently have

legend.position ="top"

which automatically produces a horizontal legend. However, the spacing of the items is very close together and I am wondering how to space them farther apart.

Upvotes: 190

Views: 204677

Answers (9)

teunbrand
teunbrand

Reputation: 37903

As of ggplot2 3.5.0, legend spacing has been reworked. For overview purposes, I'll repeat the graphic from the release blog.

enter image description here

To manipulate spacing between different legends, use the legend.spacing setting.

library(ggplot2)

p <- ggplot(mpg, aes(displ, hwy, colour = class, shape = factor(cyl))) +
  geom_point() +
  guides(colour = guide_legend(ncol = 2))

p + theme(
  legend.spacing = unit(1, "cm")
)

To control spacing of key-label pairs within legends, uses the legend.key.spacing settings. For historical reasons the y-spacing does not inherit from the main legend.key.spacing setting, so you'd have to explicitly state legend.key.spacing.y in that case.

p + theme(
  legend.key.spacing.x = unit(1, "cm"),
  legend.key.spacing.y = unit(1, "cm")
)

To manipulate the spacing between the labels and the keys, use the text margins.

p + theme(
  legend.text = element_text(margin = margin(l = 1, unit = "cm"))
)

Created on 2024-02-27 with reprex v2.1.0

Upvotes: 21

Tung
Tung

Reputation: 28331

ggplot2 v3.0.0 released in July 2018 has working options to modify legend.spacing.x, legend.spacing.y and legend.text.

Update Dec 2021 - to make legend.spacing.y work, you will need to set byrow = TRUE in the corresponding guide_legend. See also this thread. Example below.

Example: Increase horizontal spacing between legend keys

library(ggplot2)

ggplot(mtcars, aes(factor(cyl), fill = factor(cyl))) + 
  geom_bar() +
  coord_flip() +
  scale_fill_brewer("Cyl", palette = "Dark2") +
  theme_minimal(base_size = 14) +
  theme(legend.position = 'top', 
        legend.spacing.x = unit(1.0, 'cm'))

Note: If you only want to expand the spacing to the right of the legend text, use stringr::str_pad()

Example: Increase vertical spacing (mind byrow = TRUE)

library(ggplot2)

ggplot(mtcars, aes(y = factor(cyl), fill = factor(cyl))) + 
  geom_bar() +
  theme(legend.spacing.y = unit(1.0, 'cm'))  +
  ## important additional element
  guides(fill = guide_legend(byrow = TRUE))

Example: Move the legend key labels to the bottom and increase vertical spacing

ggplot(mtcars, aes(factor(cyl), fill = factor(cyl))) + 
  geom_bar() +
  coord_flip() +
  scale_fill_brewer("Cyl", palette = "Dark2") +
  theme_minimal(base_size = 14) +
  theme(legend.position = 'top', 
        legend.spacing.x = unit(1.0, 'cm'),
        legend.text = element_text(margin = margin(t = 10))) +
  guides(fill = guide_legend(title = "Cyl",
                             label.position = "bottom",
                             title.position = "left", title.vjust = 1))

Example: for scale_fill_xxx & guide_colorbar

ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, wt)) +
  geom_point(aes(fill = hp), pch = I(21), size = 5)+
  scale_fill_viridis_c(guide = FALSE) +
  theme_classic(base_size = 14) +
  theme(legend.position = 'top', 
        legend.spacing.x = unit(0.5, 'cm'),
        legend.text = element_text(margin = margin(t = 10))) +
  guides(fill = guide_colorbar(title = "HP",
                               label.position = "bottom",
                               title.position = "left", title.vjust = 1,
                               # draw border around the legend
                               frame.colour = "black",
                               barwidth = 15,
                               barheight = 1.5))

The below is obsolete, but is left for curious people.

For vertical legends, settinglegend.key.size only increases the size of the legend keys, not the vertical space between them

ggplot(mtcars) +
  aes(x = cyl, fill = factor(cyl)) +
  geom_bar() +
  scale_fill_brewer("Cyl", palette = "Dark2") +
  theme_minimal(base_size = 14) +
  theme(legend.key.size = unit(1, "cm"))

In order to increase the distance between legend keys, modification of the legend-draw.r function is needed. See this issue for more info

# function to increase vertical spacing between legend keys
# @clauswilke
draw_key_polygon3 <- function(data, params, size) {
  lwd <- min(data$size, min(size) / 4)
  
  grid::rectGrob(
    width = grid::unit(0.6, "npc"),
    height = grid::unit(0.6, "npc"),
    gp = grid::gpar(
      col = data$colour,
      fill = alpha(data$fill, data$alpha),
      lty = data$linetype,
      lwd = lwd * .pt,
      linejoin = "mitre"
    ))
}

### this step is not needed anymore per tjebo's comment below
### see also: https://ggplot2.tidyverse.org/reference/draw_key.html
# register new key drawing function, 
# the effect is global & persistent throughout the R session
# GeomBar$draw_key = draw_key_polygon3

ggplot(mtcars) +
  aes(x = cyl, fill = factor(cyl)) +
  geom_bar(key_glyph = "polygon3") +
  scale_fill_brewer("Cyl", palette = "Dark2") +
  theme_minimal(base_size = 14) +
  theme(legend.key = element_rect(color = NA, fill = NA),
        legend.key.size = unit(1.5, "cm")) +
  theme(legend.title.align = 0.5)

Upvotes: 182

jcb
jcb

Reputation: 704

To add spacing between entries in a legend, adjust the margins of the theme element legend.text.

To add 30pt of space to the right of each legend label (may be useful for a horizontal legend):

p + theme(legend.text = element_text(
    margin = margin(r = 30, unit = "pt")))

To add 30pt of space to the left of each legend label (may be useful for a vertical legend):

p + theme(legend.text = element_text(
    margin = margin(l = 30, unit = "pt")))

for a ggplot2 object p. The keywords are legend.text and margin.

[Note about edit: When this answer was first posted, there was a bug. The bug has now been fixed]

Upvotes: 55

theforestecologist
theforestecologist

Reputation: 4917

Looks like the best approach (in 2018) is to use legend.key.size under the theme object. (e.g., see here).

#Set-up:
    library(ggplot2)
    library(gridExtra)

    gp <- ggplot(data = mtcars, aes(mpg, cyl, colour = factor(cyl))) +
        geom_point()

This is real easy if you are using theme_bw(): 

  gpbw <- gp + theme_bw()

#Change spacing size:

  g1bw <- gpbw + theme(legend.key.size = unit(0, 'lines'))
  g2bw <- gpbw + theme(legend.key.size = unit(1.5, 'lines'))
  g3bw <- gpbw + theme(legend.key.size = unit(3, 'lines'))

  grid.arrange(g1bw,g2bw,g3bw,nrow=3)

enter image description here

However, this doesn't work quite so well otherwise (e.g., if you need the grey background on your legend symbol):

  g1 <- gp + theme(legend.key.size = unit(0, 'lines'))
  g2 <- gp + theme(legend.key.size = unit(1.5, 'lines'))
  g3 <- gp + theme(legend.key.size = unit(3, 'lines'))

  grid.arrange(g1,g2,g3,nrow=3)

#Notice that the legend symbol squares get bigger (that's what legend.key.size does). 

#Let's [indirectly] "control" that, too:
  gp2 <- g3
  g4 <- gp2 + theme(legend.key = element_rect(size = 1))
  g5 <- gp2 + theme(legend.key = element_rect(size = 3))
  g6 <- gp2 + theme(legend.key = element_rect(size = 10))

  grid.arrange(g4,g5,g6,nrow=3)   #see picture below, left

Notice that white squares begin blocking legend title (and eventually the graph itself if we kept increasing the value).

  #This shows you why:
    gt <- gp2 + theme(legend.key = element_rect(size = 10,color = 'yellow' ))

enter image description here

I haven't quite found a work-around for fixing the above problem... Let me know in the comments if you have an idea, and I'll update accordingly!

  • I wonder if there is some way to re-layer things using $layers...

Upvotes: 32

MaazKhan47
MaazKhan47

Reputation: 849

Use any of these

legend.spacing = unit(1,"cm")
legend.spacing.x = unit(1,"cm")
legend.spacing.y = unit(1,"cm")

Upvotes: 6

Brandon Bertelsen
Brandon Bertelsen

Reputation: 44638

From Koshke's work on ggplot2 and his blog (Koshke's blog) 

... + theme(legend.key.height=unit(3,"line")) # Change 3 to X
... + theme(legend.key.width=unit(3,"line")) # Change 3 to X

Type theme_get() in the console to see other editable legend attributes.

Upvotes: 17

agstudy
agstudy

Reputation: 121568

I think the best option is to use guide_legend within guides:

p + guides(fill=guide_legend(
                 keywidth=0.1,
                 keyheight=0.1,
                 default.unit="inch")
      )

Note the use of default.unit , no need to load grid package.

Upvotes: 85

user2568648
user2568648

Reputation: 3181

A simple fix that I use to add space in horizontal legends, simply add spaces in the labels (see extract below):

  scale_fill_manual(values=c("red","blue","white"),
                    labels=c("Label of category 1          ",
                             "Label of category 2          ",
                             "Label of category 3"))

Upvotes: 49

Pop
Pop

Reputation: 12401

Now that opts is deprecated in ggplot2 package, function theme should be used instead:

library(grid) # for unit()
... + theme(legend.key.height=unit(3,"line"))
... + theme(legend.key.width=unit(3,"line"))

Upvotes: 41

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