Add line break to axis labels and ticks in ggplot

Question

I\'m looking for a way to use long variable names on the x axis of a plot. Of course I could use a smaller font or rotate them a little but I would like keep them vertical a

Answer 1

In addition to Joe's answer this also works

myplot + scale_x_discrete(labels = c("Ambystoma\nmexicanum")

Answer 2

via str_replace_all(), replace 'foo_your_symbol_delim' with a space delim ' '

via str_wrap from stringr library, with width prespecified at 40, split at space delimiter ' ', wrap the pieces, and paste

library(stringr)
...
+ scale_x_discrete(labels = function(x) str_wrap(str_replace_all(x, "foo" , " "),
                                                 width = 40))

Answer 3

If you don't want a break at each space, you could alternatively use the \n (new line) within the call to scale_x_continuous:

my.labels <- c("Ambystoma\nmexicanum",
               "Daubentonia madagascariensis", 
               "Psychrolutes marcidus") # first create labels, add \n where appropriate.

myplot + 
    scale_x_discrete(labels= my.labels)

Note that only the first name (Ambystoma mexicanum) will break using the new line command (\n).

Answer 4

You can add your own formatter ( see scales package for more examples). Here I replace any space in your x labels by a new line.

addline_format <- function(x,...){
    gsub('\\s','\n',x)
}

myplot + 
    scale_x_discrete(breaks=unique(df_M$variable), 
    labels=addline_format(c("Ambystoma mexicanum", 
                        "Daubentonia madagascariensis", "Psychrolutes marcidus")))

Answer 5

I'd also add to @SoilSciGuy's answer that if you only want to modify one label, you can do it inside scale_x_discrete().

myplot + scale_x_discrete(labels = c("Ambystoma mexicanum" = "Ambystoma\nmexicanum")