A custom ggplot2 theme

A wrapper around theme() which provides several shortcuts to setting common options and several defaults. See more in Details.

Usage

theme_vau(
  gridlines = c("y", "x", "both", "scatter", "none"),
  base_size = 11,
  family = "Roboto Condensed",
  title_family = "Roboto Condensed",
  multiplot = FALSE,
  tonecol = uv_seda,
  margin_side = 6,
  margin_bottom = 6,
  plot.title.position = "plot",
  axis_titles = c("none", "y", "x", "both"),
  richtext = FALSE,
  richtext_style = NULL,
  map = FALSE,
  inverse = TRUE,
  ...
)

Arguments

gridlines

Whether to display major gridlines along "y" (the default), "x", "both", or draw a "scatter", which has both gridlines and inverted colours.

base_size

Numeric text size in pts, affects all text in plot. Defaults to 11.

family, title_family

font family to use for the (title of the) plot. Defaults to "Roboto Condensed".

multiplot

if set to TRUE, provides better styling for small multiples created using facet_*.

tonecol

Color for panel/plot background.

margin_side, margin_bottom

size of left and right / bottom margin around plot, in pts. Defaults to 6. Set to 0 to align flush with text in a Word document.

plot.title.position

where to align the title. Either "plot" (the default, difference from theme() default) or "panel".

axis_titles

whether to display axis titles: "none" (default), "x", "y", or "both".

richtext

Whether to render labels using marquee. Defaults to FALSE.

richtext_style

Marquee style object to use in richtext fields

map

if set to TRUE, provides better styling for maps created using geom_sf(). Overrides gridlines.

inverse

Create plot with plot background in tonecol and white panel bg.

...

Arguments passed on to ggplot2::theme

line: all line elements (element_line())
rect: all rectangular elements (element_rect())
title: all title elements: plot, axes, legends (element_text(); inherits from text)
aspect.ratio: aspect ratio of the panel
axis.text,axis.text.x,axis.text.y,axis.text.x.top,axis.text.x.bottom,axis.text.y.left,axis.text.y.right,axis.text.theta,axis.text.r: tick labels along axes (element_text()). Specify all axis tick labels (axis.text), tick labels by plane (using axis.text.x or axis.text.y), or individually for each axis (using axis.text.x.bottom, axis.text.x.top, axis.text.y.left, axis.text.y.right). axis.text.*.* inherits from axis.text.* which inherits from axis.text, which in turn inherits from text
axis.ticks,axis.ticks.x,axis.ticks.x.top,axis.ticks.x.bottom,axis.ticks.y,axis.ticks.y.left,axis.ticks.y.right,axis.ticks.theta,axis.ticks.r: tick marks along axes (element_line()). Specify all tick marks (axis.ticks), ticks by plane (using axis.ticks.x or axis.ticks.y), or individually for each axis (using axis.ticks.x.bottom, axis.ticks.x.top, axis.ticks.y.left, axis.ticks.y.right). axis.ticks.*.* inherits from axis.ticks.* which inherits from axis.ticks, which in turn inherits from line
axis.minor.ticks.x.top,axis.minor.ticks.x.bottom,axis.minor.ticks.y.left,axis.minor.ticks.y.right,axis.minor.ticks.theta,axis.minor.ticks.r: minor tick marks along axes (element_line()). axis.minor.ticks.*.* inherit from the corresponding major ticks axis.ticks.*.*.
axis.ticks.length,axis.ticks.length.x,axis.ticks.length.x.top,axis.ticks.length.x.bottom,axis.ticks.length.y,axis.ticks.length.y.left,axis.ticks.length.y.right,axis.ticks.length.theta,axis.ticks.length.r: length of tick marks (unit)
axis.minor.ticks.length,axis.minor.ticks.length.x,axis.minor.ticks.length.x.top,axis.minor.ticks.length.x.bottom,axis.minor.ticks.length.y,axis.minor.ticks.length.y.left,axis.minor.ticks.length.y.right,axis.minor.ticks.length.theta,axis.minor.ticks.length.r: length of minor tick marks (unit), or relative to axis.ticks.length when provided with rel().
axis.line,axis.line.x,axis.line.x.top,axis.line.x.bottom,axis.line.y,axis.line.y.left,axis.line.y.right,axis.line.theta,axis.line.r: lines along axes (element_line()). Specify lines along all axes (axis.line), lines for each plane (using axis.line.x or axis.line.y), or individually for each axis (using axis.line.x.bottom, axis.line.x.top, axis.line.y.left, axis.line.y.right). axis.line.*.* inherits from axis.line.* which inherits from axis.line, which in turn inherits from line
legend.background: background of legend (element_rect(); inherits from rect)
legend.margin: the margin around each legend (margin())
legend.spacing,legend.spacing.x,legend.spacing.y: the spacing between legends (unit). legend.spacing.x & legend.spacing.y inherit from legend.spacing or can be specified separately
legend.key: background underneath legend keys (element_rect(); inherits from rect)
legend.key.size,legend.key.height,legend.key.width: size of legend keys (unit); key background height & width inherit from legend.key.size or can be specified separately
legend.key.spacing,legend.key.spacing.x,legend.key.spacing.y: spacing between legend keys given as a unit. Spacing in the horizontal (x) and vertical (y) direction inherit from legend.key.spacing or can be specified separately.
legend.frame: frame drawn around the bar (element_rect()).
legend.ticks: tick marks shown along bars or axes (element_line())
legend.ticks.length: length of tick marks in legend (unit)
legend.axis.line: lines along axes in legends (element_line())
legend.text: legend item labels (element_text(); inherits from text)
legend.text.position: placement of legend text relative to legend keys or bars ("top", "right", "bottom" or "left"). The legend text placement might be incompatible with the legend's direction for some guides.
legend.title: title of legend (element_text(); inherits from title)
legend.title.position: placement of legend title relative to the main legend ("top", "right", "bottom" or "left").
legend.position: the default position of legends ("none", "left", "right", "bottom", "top", "inside")
legend.position.inside: A numeric vector of length two setting the placement of legends that have the "inside" position.
legend.direction: layout of items in legends ("horizontal" or "vertical")
legend.byrow: whether the legend-matrix is filled by columns (FALSE, the default) or by rows (TRUE).
legend.justification: anchor point for positioning legend inside plot ("center" or two-element numeric vector) or the justification according to the plot area when positioned outside the plot
legend.justification.top,legend.justification.bottom,legend.justification.left,legend.justification.right,legend.justification.inside: Same as legend.justification but specified per legend.position option.
legend.location: Relative placement of legends outside the plot as a string. Can be "panel" (default) to align legends to the panels or "plot" to align legends to the plot as a whole.
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")
legend.box.margin: margins around the full legend area, as specified using margin()
legend.box.background: background of legend area (element_rect(); inherits from rect)
legend.box.spacing: The spacing between the plotting area and the legend box (unit)
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.spacing,panel.spacing.x,panel.spacing.y: spacing between facet panels (unit). panel.spacing.x & panel.spacing.y inherit from panel.spacing or can be specified separately.
panel.ontop: option to place the panel (background, gridlines) over the data layers (logical). Usually used with a transparent or blank panel.background.
plot.background: background of the entire plot (element_rect(); inherits from rect)
plot.title.position,plot.caption.position: Alignment of the plot title/subtitle and caption. The setting for plot.title.position applies to both the title and the subtitle. A value of "panel" (the default) means that titles and/or caption are aligned to the plot panels. A value of "plot" means that titles and/or caption are aligned to the entire plot (minus any space for margins and plot tag).
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.tag: upper-left label to identify a plot (text appearance) (element_text(); inherits from title) left-aligned by default
plot.tag.position: The position of the tag as a string ("topleft", "top", "topright", "left", "right", "bottomleft", "bottom", "bottomright") or a coordinate. If a coordinate, can be a numeric vector of length 2 to set the x,y-coordinate relative to the whole plot. The coordinate option is unavailable for plot.tag.location = "margin".
plot.tag.location: The placement of the tag as a string, one of "panel", "plot" or "margin". Respectively, these will place the tag inside the panel space, anywhere in the plot as a whole, or in the margin around the panel space.
strip.clip: should strip background edges and strip labels be clipped to the extend of the strip background? Options are "on" to clip, "off" to disable clipping or "inherit" (default) to take the clipping setting from the parent viewport.
strip.placement: placement of strip with respect to axes, either "inside" or "outside". Only important when axes and strips are on the same side of the plot.
strip.text,strip.text.x,strip.text.y,strip.text.x.top,strip.text.x.bottom,strip.text.y.left,strip.text.y.right: facet labels (element_text(); inherits from text). Horizontal facet labels (strip.text.x) & vertical facet labels (strip.text.y) inherit from strip.text or can be specified separately. Facet strips have dedicated position-dependent theme elements (strip.text.x.top, strip.text.x.bottom, strip.text.y.left, strip.text.y.right) that inherit from strip.text.x and strip.text.y, respectively. As a consequence, some theme stylings need to be applied to the position-dependent elements rather than to the parent elements
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)
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. Also, when setting complete = TRUE all elements will be set to inherit from blank elements.
validate: TRUE to run validate_element(), FALSE to bypass checks.

Value

a ggtheme object

Details

In particular, the theme:

displays only major gridlines, allowing you to quickly switch which ones; gridlines are thinner, panel has white background
provides quick option to draw a scatter with grey background
switches defaults for title alignment
turns axis labels off by default: in practice, x axes are often obvious and y axes are better documented in a subtitle
sets backgrounds to a UV-style shade
sets plot title in bold and 120% of base_size

All the changed defaults can be overriden by another call to theme().

Examples

library(ggplot2)

# NB when `theme_vau()` is used in these examples, fonts
# are set to 'sans' to pass checks on computers without the
# sans included. If you have these fonts (see Note) you can
# leave these parameters at their default values.

# the basic plot for illustration, theme not used

p <- ggplot(mpg) +
  geom_bar(aes(y = class)) +
  labs(title = "Lots of cars", subtitle = "Count of numbers")

# using `theme_vau()` defaults

p +
  theme_vau("x", family = "sans", title_family = "sans")


# in combination with `flush_axis()`:

p +
  theme_vau("x", family = "sans", title_family = "sans") +
  scale_x_continuous(expand = flush_axis())


# scatter

ggplot(mpg) +
  geom_point(aes(cty, hwy)) +
  theme_vau("scatter", family = "sans", title_family = "sans") +
  labs(title = "Lots of cars", subtitle = "Point by point")


# Smaller text, flush alignment

ggplot(mpg) +
  geom_point(aes(cty, hwy)) +
  theme_vau("scatter", base_size = 9, margin_side = 0,
                family = "sans", title_family = "sans") +
  labs(title = "Lots of cars", subtitle = "Point by point")


# Override defaults changed inside `theme_vau()`

ggplot(mpg) +
  geom_point(aes(cty, hwy)) +
  theme_vau("scatter", base_size = 9, margin_side = 0,
               family = "sans", title_family = "sans") +
  labs(title = "Lots of cars", subtitle = "Point by point") +
  theme(panel.background = element_rect(fill = "lightpink"))

Usage

Arguments

Value

Details

See also

Examples