Aligning title, subtitle and caption for horizontal ggplot barchart

Question

I would like to left align the plot.title, plot.subtitle and plot.caption in a horizontal ggplot2 barchart.

Example:

Answer 1

While you could edit those three grobs, you can also just:

library(gridExtra)
library(grid)

grid.arrange(
  textGrob("This is a nice title", 
           gp=gpar(fontsize=16, col="#2b2b2b"), 
           x=unit(0.005, "npc"), just=c("left", "bottom")),
  textGrob("A subtitle",  
           gp=gpar(fontsize=12, col="#2b2b2b"), 
           x=unit(0.005, "npc"), just=c("left", "bottom")),
  ggplot(df, aes(x=type, y=value)) +
    geom_bar(stat='identity') +
    coord_flip() +
    theme(axis.title=element_blank()),
  textGrob("We even have a caption. A very long one indeed.", 
           gp=gpar(fontsize=9, col="#2b2b2b"), 
           x=unit(0.005, "npc"), just=c("left", "bottom")),
  ncol=1,
  heights=c(0.075, 0.025, 0.85, 0.05)
)

Make a wrapper for it, put it in a personal pkg. Boom. Done.

---

library(ggplot2)
library(gridExtra)
library(grid)

df <- data.frame(type=factor(c("Brooklyn","Manhatten and\n Queens")), value=c(15,30))

ggplot(df, aes(x=type, y=value)) +
  geom_bar(stat='identity') +
  coord_flip() +
  theme(axis.title=element_blank()) +
  theme(plot.margin=margin(l=0, t=5, b=5))-> gg

flush_plot <- function(x, title, subtitle, caption) {
  tg <- function(label, ...) {
    textGrob(label,  x=unit(0, "npc"), just=c("left", "bottom"),
             gp=do.call(gpar, as.list(substitute(list(...)))[-1L])) }
  grid.arrange(
    tg(title, fontsize=16, col="#2b2b2b"),
    tg(subtitle, fontsize=12, col="#2b2b2b"), x,
    tg(caption, fontsize=9, col="#2b2b2b"),
    ncol=1, heights=c(0.075, 0.025, 0.85, 0.05)
  )
}

flush_plot(gg, "This is a nice title", "A subtitle", 
           "We even have a caption. A very long one indeed.")