One Weird Trick to Make Ggplot2 Columns the Same Width
[This article was first published on pacha.dev/blog, and kindly contributed to R-bloggers]. (You can report issue about the content on this page here)
Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.
Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.
R and Shiny Training: If you find this blog to be interesting, please note that I offer personalized and group-based training sessions that may be reserved through Buy me a Coffee. Additionally, I provide training services in the Spanish language and am available to discuss means by which I may contribute to your Shiny project.
If you have used ggplot2, you probably wondered how to make all columns the same width.
You might have created a plot such as this one.
library(dplyr)
library(ggplot2)
# remotes::install_github("pachadotdev/tintin")
library(tintin)
total_head_trauma_5 <- tintin_head_trauma %>%
arrange(-loss_of_consciousness_length) %>%
filter(row_number() <= 5)
ggplot(total_head_trauma_5) +
geom_col(
aes(
x = cause_of_injury, y = loss_of_consciousness_length,
fill = book_title
),
position = "dodge"
) +
labs(
x = "Cause of injury", y = "Loss of consciousness length",
title = "Top five causes of injury in Tintin books"
)

Here’s how to do it with one additional line to the usual ggplot statements.
ggplot(total_head_trauma_5) +
geom_col(
aes(
x = cause_of_injury, y = loss_of_consciousness_length,
fill = book_title
),
# not this
# position = "dodge"
# but this
position = position_dodge(preserve = "single")
) +
labs(
x = "Cause of injury", y = "Loss of consciousness length",
title = "Top five causes of injury in Tintin books"
)

We can center the columns and make columns in the same category more separated, and also make it a bit nicer.
ggplot(total_head_trauma_5) +
geom_col(
aes(
x = cause_of_injury, y = loss_of_consciousness_length,
fill = book_title
),
position = position_dodge2(preserve = "single")
) +
labs(
x = "Cause of injury", y = "Loss of consciousness length",
title = "Top five causes of injury in Tintin books"
) +
theme_minimal() +
scale_fill_manual(
values = tintin_colours$the_black_island, name = "Book"
) +
coord_flip()

To leave a comment for the author, please follow the link and comment on their blog: pacha.dev/blog.
R-bloggers.com offers daily e-mail updates about R news and tutorials about learning R and many other topics. Click here if you're looking to post or find an R/data-science job.
Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.