Modifying fonts in ggplot2

Question

I am looking for a way to modify font types in ggplot. At the moment I would be happy enough to simply change fonts to the \'courier\' font family, but ultimately my goal is

Answer 1

Have a look at the family argument of theme_text()

dummy <- data.frame(A = rnorm(10), B = rnorm(10))
ggplot(dummy, aes(x = A, y = B)) + geom_point()
#helvetica = default
ggplot(dummy, aes(x = A, y = B)) + geom_point() + opts(axis.title.x = theme_text(family = "sans", face = "bold"))
#times
ggplot(dummy, aes(x = A, y = B)) + geom_point() + opts(axis.title.x = theme_text(family = "serif", face = "bold"))
#courier 
ggplot(dummy, aes(x = A, y = B)) + geom_point() + opts(axis.title.x = theme_text(family = "mono", face = "bold"))

Answer 2

You can set the font of the labels produced by geom_text with grid.gedit:

grid.gedit("GRID.text",gp=gpar(fontfamily="mono"))

Call this after you have produced your original plot.

Answer 3

This seems like the simplest solution, for my money.

Some play data in df, and made into a simple graph, "p", with nice long x and y labels, so we can see the font change:

df <- data.frame(A = rnorm(10), B = rnorm(10))
p = ggplot(data = df, aes(x = A, y = B)) + geom_point()
p = p + xlab("A long x-string so we can see the effect of the font switch")
p = p + ylab("Likewise up the ordinate")

And we view the default plot in whatever that font is:

p 

Now we switch to Optima, adding some nice title and subtitle to bask in the glory of Optima:

label = "Now we switch to Optima"
subtitle = "Optima is a nice font: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optima#Usages"

And after all that, we print in the new font

# the only line you need to read:
p + theme(text = element_text(family = "Optima", , face = "bold"))
p = p + ggtitle(label = label, subtitle = subtitle)
p

Answer 4

Also check out the Cairo package, which has support for totally switching out all of the fonts with those of your choosing. http://rforge.net/doc/packages/Cairo/00Index.html

Answer 5

I think your answer is fine but you can do it more simply:

install.packages("extrafont");library(extrafont)
font_import("Trebuchet MS")
library(ggplot2)
qplot(1:10)+theme(text=element_text(family="Trebuchet MS"))

Answer 6

Inspired by a post on kohske's blog I came up with this:

theme_set( theme_bw( base_family= "serif"))

theme_update( panel.grid.minor= theme_blank(),
             panel.grid.major= theme_blank(),
             panel.background= theme_blank(),
             axis.title.x= theme_blank(),
             axis.text.x= theme_text( family= "serif",
               angle= 90, hjust= 1 ),
             axis.text.x= theme_text( family= "serif"),
             axis.title.y= theme_blank())

theme_map <- theme_get()

theme_set( theme_bw())

Now when I want to use that particular theme:

last_plot() + theme_map

YMMV.

BTW, if I had the power I would vote down the preferred answer:

> grid.gedit("GRID.text",gp=gpar(fontfamily="mono"))
Error in editDLfromGPath(gPath, specs, strict, grep, global, redraw) :
  'gPath' (GRID.text) not found

Not sure what this means. Nor was I offered a link to comment on that answer; maybe something has changed on the site.