Add text labels with ggplot2



This document is dedicated to text annotation with ggplot2. It provides several examples with reproducible code showing how to use function like geom_label and geom_text.

More annotation with ggplot2 Annotation, why?

Adding text with geom_text()


This example demonstrates how to use geom_text() to add text as markers. It works pretty much the same as geom_point(), but add text instead of circles. A few arguments must be provided:

  • label: what text you want to display
  • nudge_x and nudge_y: shifts the text along X and Y axis
  • check_overlap tries to avoid text overlap. Note that a package called ggrepel extends this concept further

# library
library(ggplot2)
 
# Keep 30 first rows in the mtcars natively available dataset
data=head(mtcars, 30)
 
# 1/ add text with geom_text, use nudge to nudge the text
ggplot(data, aes(x=wt, y=mpg)) +
  geom_point() + # Show dots
  geom_text(
    label=rownames(data), 
    nudge_x = 0.25, nudge_y = 0.25, 
    check_overlap = T
  )

Add labels with geom_label()


geom_label() works pretty much the same way as geom_text(). However, text is wrapped in a rectangle that you can customize (see next example).

# library
library(ggplot2)
 
# Keep 30 first rows in the mtcars natively available dataset
data=head(mtcars, 30)
 
# 1/ add text with geom_text, use nudge to nudge the text
ggplot(data, aes(x=wt, y=mpg)) +
  geom_point() + # Show dots
  geom_label(
    label=rownames(data), 
    nudge_x = 0.25, nudge_y = 0.25, 
    check_overlap = T
  )

Add one text label only


Of course, you don’t have to label all dots on the chart. You can also add a piece of text on a specific position. Since we’re here, note that you can custom the annotation of geom_label with label.padding, label.size, color and fill as described below:

# library
library(ggplot2)
 
# Keep 30 first rows in the mtcars natively available dataset
data=head(mtcars, 30)
 
# Add one annotation
ggplot(data, aes(x=wt, y=mpg)) +
  geom_point() + # Show dots
  geom_label(
    label="Look at this!", 
    x=4.1,
    y=20,
    label.padding = unit(0.55, "lines"), # Rectangle size around label
    label.size = 0.35,
    color = "black",
    fill="#69b3a2"
  )

Add labels for a selection of marker


Last but not least, you can also select a group of marker and annotate them only. Here, only car with mpg > 20 and wt > 3 are annotated thanks to a data filtering in the geom_label() call.

# library
library(ggplot2)
library(dplyr)
library(tibble)

# Keep 30 first rows in the mtcars natively available dataset
data=head(mtcars, 30)

# Change data rownames as a real column called 'carName'
data <- data %>%
  rownames_to_column(var="carName")
  
# Plot
ggplot(data, aes(x=wt, y=mpg)) +
  geom_point() + 
  geom_label( 
    data=data %>% filter(mpg>20 & wt>3), # Filter data first
    aes(label=carName)
  )

Related chart types


Scatter
Heatmap
Correlogram
Bubble
Connected scatter
Density 2d



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