Help for package ggtext

Type:

Package

Title:

Improved Text Rendering Support for 'ggplot2'

Version:

0.2.0

Description:

A 'ggplot2' extension that enables the rendering of complex formatted plot labels (titles, subtitles, facet labels, axis labels, etc.). Text boxes with automatic word wrap are also supported.

URL:

https://wilkelab.org/ggtext/

BugReports:

https://github.com/wilkelab/ggtext/issues

License:

GPL-2

Depends:

R (≥ 3.5)

Imports:

ggplot2 (≥ 3.3.0), grid, gridtext, rlang, scales

Suggests:

cowplot, dplyr, glue, knitr, rmarkdown, testthat, vdiffr

Encoding:

UTF-8

VignetteBuilder:

knitr

Config/roxygen2/version:

8.0.0

NeedsCompilation:

Packaged:

2026-08-26 18:23:23 UTC; brentonw

Author:

Claus O. Wilke

[aut], Brenton M. Wiernik

[aut, cre] (Twitter: @bmwiernik)

Maintainer:

Brenton M. Wiernik <brenton@wiernik.org>

Repository:

CRAN

Date/Publication:

2026-08-28 10:30:07 UTC

Improved text rendering support for ggplot2

Description

The ggtext package implements both geoms (geom_richtext(), geom_textbox()) and theme elements (element_markdown(), element_textbox()) for improved text rendering with ggplot2.

Author(s)

Maintainer: Brenton M. Wiernik brenton@wiernik.org (ORCID) (Twitter: @bmwiernik)

Authors:

Brenton M. Wiernik brenton@wiernik.org (ORCID) (Twitter: @bmwiernik)
Claus O. Wilke wilke@austin.utexas.edu (ORCID)

Key glyph for rich text

Description

This is a function for rendering the key in the rich text style when a geom needs to be displayed in a legend. It is designed to be provided to a layer's key_glyph argument, either as a function or as key_glyph = "richtext".

Usage

draw_key_richtext(data, params, size)

Arguments

data

A single row data frame containing the scaled aesthetics to display in this key

params

A list of additional parameters supplied to the geom.

size

Width and height of key in mm.

Value

A richtext_grob that represents formatted text.

Examples

library(ggplot2)

ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg, label = rownames(mtcars))) +
  geom_richtext(aes(colour = factor(cyl)), key_glyph = "richtext")

Theme element that enables markdown text.

Description

Theme element that enables markdown text.

Usage

element_markdown(
  family = NULL,
  face = NULL,
  size = NULL,
  colour = NULL,
  fill = NULL,
  box.colour = NULL,
  linetype = NULL,
  linewidth = NULL,
  hjust = NULL,
  vjust = NULL,
  halign = NULL,
  valign = NULL,
  angle = NULL,
  lineheight = NULL,
  margin = NULL,
  padding = NULL,
  r = NULL,
  color = NULL,
  box.color = NULL,
  align_widths = NULL,
  align_heights = NULL,
  rotate_margins = NULL,
  debug = FALSE,
  inherit.blank = FALSE
)

Arguments

family

Font family

face

Font face

size

Font size

colour, color

Text color

fill

Fill color of the enclosing box

box.colour, box.color

Line color of the enclosing box (if different from the text color)

linetype

Line type of the enclosing box (like lty in base R)

linewidth

Line width of the enclosing box (measured in mm, just like size in ggplot2::element_line()).

hjust

Horizontal justification

vjust

Vertical justification

halign

Horizontal justification

valign

Vertical justification

angle

Angle (in degrees)

lineheight

Line height

padding, margin

Padding and margins around the text box. See gridtext::richtext_grob() for details.

r

Unit value specifying the corner radius of the box

align_widths, align_heights

Should multiple elements be aligned by their widths or height? See gridtext::richtext_grob() for details.

rotate_margins

Should margins get rotated in frame with rotated text? If TRUE, the margins are applied relative to the text direction. If FALSE, the margins are applied relative to the plot direction, i.e., the top margin, for example, is always placed above the text label, regardless of the direction in which the text runs. The default is FALSE, which mimics the behavior of element_text().

debug

Draw a debugging box around each label

inherit.blank

See ggplot2::margin() for details.

Value

A ggplot2 theme element that can be used inside a ggplot2::theme() call.

Theme element that enables markdown text in a box.

Description

The theme elements element_textbox() and element_textbox_simple() enable Markdown text in a box, with word wrap. Both functions implement exactly the same functionality; they only differ in the default values for the various element values. element_textbox() sets all values that are not specified to NULL, as is the usual practice in ggplot2 themes. These missing values are usually completed by inheritance from parent theme elements. By contrast, element_textbox_simple() provides meaningful default values for many of the values that are not usually defined in ggplot2 themes. This makes it simpler to use a textbox element in the context of an existing theme.

Usage

element_textbox(
  family = NULL,
  face = NULL,
  size = NULL,
  colour = NULL,
  fill = NULL,
  box.colour = NULL,
  linetype = NULL,
  linewidth = NULL,
  hjust = NULL,
  vjust = NULL,
  halign = NULL,
  valign = NULL,
  lineheight = NULL,
  margin = NULL,
  padding = NULL,
  width = NULL,
  height = NULL,
  minwidth = NULL,
  maxwidth = NULL,
  minheight = NULL,
  maxheight = NULL,
  r = NULL,
  orientation = NULL,
  color = NULL,
  box.color = NULL,
  debug = FALSE,
  inherit.blank = FALSE
)

element_textbox_simple(
  family = NULL,
  face = NULL,
  size = NULL,
  colour = NULL,
  fill = NA,
  box.colour = NULL,
  linetype = 0,
  linewidth = 0.5,
  hjust = 0.5,
  vjust = 0.5,
  halign = 0,
  valign = 1,
  lineheight = 1.2,
  margin = ggplot2::margin(0, 0, 0, 0),
  padding = ggplot2::margin(0, 0, 0, 0),
  width = grid::unit(1, "npc"),
  height = NULL,
  minwidth = NULL,
  maxwidth = NULL,
  minheight = NULL,
  maxheight = NULL,
  r = grid::unit(0, "pt"),
  orientation = "upright",
  color = NULL,
  box.color = NULL,
  debug = FALSE,
  inherit.blank = FALSE
)

Arguments

family

Font family

face

Font face

size

Font size (in pt)

colour, color

Text color

fill

Fill color of the enclosing box

box.colour, box.color

Line color of the enclosing box (if different from the text color)

linetype

Line type of the enclosing box (like lty in base R)

linewidth

Line width of the enclosing box (measured in mm, just like size in ggplot2::element_line()).

hjust

Horizontal justification

vjust

Vertical justification

halign

Horizontal justification

valign

Vertical justification

lineheight

Line height, in multiples of the font size

padding, margin

Padding and margins around the text box. See gridtext::textbox_grob() for details.

width, height

Unit objects specifying the width and height of the textbox, as in gridtext::textbox_grob().

minwidth, minheight, maxwidth, maxheight

Min and max values for width and height. Set to NULL to impose neither a minimum nor a maximum.

r

Unit value specifying the corner radius of the box

orientation

Orientation of the text box. See gridtext::textbox_grob() for details.

debug

Not implemented.

inherit.blank

See ggplot2::margin() for details.

Value

A ggplot2 theme element that can be used inside a ggplot2::theme() call.

Examples

library(ggplot2)

ggplot(mtcars, aes(disp, mpg)) + 
geom_point() +
  labs(
  title = "<b><span style = 'font-size:13pt'>Fuel economy vs. engine displacement</span></b><br>
Lorem ipsum *dolor sit amet,* consectetur adipiscing elit, **sed do eiusmod tempor
incididunt** ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam,
<span style = 'color:red;'>quis nostrud exercitation ullamco</span> laboris nisi ut
aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.",
  x = "displacement (in<sup>3</sup>)",
  y = "Miles per gallon (mpg)
<span style = 'font-size:8pt'>A measure of the car's fuel efficiency.</span>"
  ) +
  theme(
    plot.title.position = "plot",
    plot.title = element_textbox_simple(
      size = 10,
      padding = margin(5.5, 5.5, 5.5, 5.5),
      margin = margin(0, 0, 5.5, 0),
      fill = "cornsilk"
    ),
    axis.title.x = element_textbox_simple(
      width = NULL,
      padding = margin(4, 4, 4, 4),
      margin = margin(4, 0, 0, 0),
      linetype = 1,
      r = grid::unit(8, "pt"),
      fill = "azure1"
    ),
    axis.title.y = element_textbox_simple(
      hjust = 0,
      orientation = "left-rotated",
      minwidth = unit(1, "in"),
      maxwidth = unit(2, "in"),
      padding = margin(4, 4, 2, 4),
      margin = margin(0, 0, 2, 0),
      fill = "lightsteelblue1"
    )
  )

Richtext labels

Description

This geom draws text labels similar to ggplot2::geom_label(), but formatted using basic markdown/html. Parameter and aesthetic names follow the conventions of ggplot2::geom_label(), and therefore the appearance of the frame around the label is controlled with label.colour, label.padding, label.margin, label.size, label.r, even though the same parameters are called box.colour, box.padding, box.margin, box.size, and box.r in geom_textbox(). Most styling parameters can be used as aesthetics and can be applied separately to each text label drawn. The exception is styling parameters that are specified as grid units (e.g., label.padding or label.r), which can only be specified for all text labels at once. See examples for details.

Usage

geom_richtext(
  mapping = NULL,
  data = NULL,
  stat = "identity",
  position = "identity",
  ...,
  nudge_x = 0,
  nudge_y = 0,
  label.padding = unit(c(0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25), "lines"),
  label.margin = unit(c(0, 0, 0, 0), "lines"),
  label.r = unit(0.15, "lines"),
  na.rm = FALSE,
  show.legend = NA,
  inherit.aes = TRUE
)

Arguments

mapping

Set of aesthetic mappings created by aes(). If specified and inherit.aes = TRUE (the default), it is combined with the default mapping at the top level of the plot. You must supply mapping if there is no plot mapping.

data

The data to be displayed in this layer. There are three options:

If NULL, the default, the data is inherited from the plot data as specified in the call to ggplot().

A data.frame, or other object, will override the plot data. All objects will be fortified to produce a data frame. See fortify() for which variables will be created.

A function will be called with a single argument, the plot data. The return value must be a data.frame, and will be used as the layer data. A function can be created from a formula (e.g. ~ head(.x, 10)).

stat

The statistical transformation to use on the data for this layer. When using a ⁠geom_*()⁠ function to construct a layer, the stat argument can be used to override the default coupling between geoms and stats. The stat argument accepts the following:

A Stat ggproto subclass, for example StatCount.
A string naming the stat. To give the stat as a string, strip the function name of the stat_ prefix. For example, to use stat_count(), give the stat as "count".
For more information and other ways to specify the stat, see the layer stat documentation.

position

A position adjustment to use on the data for this layer. This can be used in various ways, including to prevent overplotting and improving the display. The position argument accepts the following:

The result of calling a position function, such as position_jitter(). This method allows for passing extra arguments to the position.
A string naming the position adjustment. To give the position as a string, strip the function name of the position_ prefix. For example, to use position_jitter(), give the position as "jitter".
For more information and other ways to specify the position, see the layer position documentation.

...

Other arguments passed on to layer()'s params argument. These arguments broadly fall into one of 4 categories below. Notably, further arguments to the position argument, or aesthetics that are required can not be passed through .... Unknown arguments that are not part of the 4 categories below are ignored.

Static aesthetics that are not mapped to a scale, but are at a fixed value and apply to the layer as a whole. For example, colour = "red" or linewidth = 3. The geom's documentation has an Aesthetics section that lists the available options. The 'required' aesthetics cannot be passed on to the params. Please note that while passing unmapped aesthetics as vectors is technically possible, the order and required length is not guaranteed to be parallel to the input data.
When constructing a layer using a ⁠stat_*()⁠ function, the ... argument can be used to pass on parameters to the geom part of the layer. An example of this is stat_density(geom = "area", outline.type = "both"). The geom's documentation lists which parameters it can accept.
Inversely, when constructing a layer using a ⁠geom_*()⁠ function, the ... argument can be used to pass on parameters to the stat part of the layer. An example of this is geom_area(stat = "density", adjust = 0.5). The stat's documentation lists which parameters it can accept.
The key_glyph argument of layer() may also be passed on through .... This can be one of the functions described as key glyphs, to change the display of the layer in the legend.

nudge_x

Shifts text horizontally, as in geom_text().

nudge_y

Shifts text vertically, as in geom_text().

label.padding

Amount of padding around label. Defaults to 0.25 lines.

label.margin

Unit vector of length four specifying the margin outside the text label.

label.r

Radius of rounded corners. Defaults to 0.15 lines.

na.rm

If FALSE, the default, missing values are removed with a warning. If TRUE, missing values are silently removed.

show.legend

logical. Should this layer be included in the legends? NA, the default, includes if any aesthetics are mapped. FALSE never includes, and TRUE always includes. It can also be a named logical vector to finely select the aesthetics to display. To include legend keys for all levels, even when no data exists, use TRUE. If NA, all levels are shown in legend, but unobserved levels are omitted.

inherit.aes

If FALSE, overrides the default aesthetics, rather than combining with them. This is most useful for helper functions that define both data and aesthetics and shouldn't inherit behaviour from the default plot specification, e.g. annotation_borders().

Value

A ggplot2 layer that can be added to a plot created with ggplot2::ggplot().

Aesthetics

geom_richtext() understands the following aesthetics (required aesthetics are in bold; select aesthetics are annotated):

x
y
label
alpha
angle
colour Default color of label text and label outline.
family
fontface
fill Default fill color of label background.
group
hjust
label.colour Color of label outline. Overrides colour.
label.size Width of label outline.
lineheight
size Default font size of label text.
text.colour Color of label text. Overrides colour.
vjust

Examples

library(ggplot2)

df <- data.frame(
  label = c(
    "Some text **in bold.**",
    "Linebreaks<br>Linebreaks<br>Linebreaks",
    "*x*<sup>2</sup> + 5*x* + *C*<sub>*i*</sub>",
    "Some <span style='color:blue'>blue text **in bold.**</span><br>And *italics text.*<br>
      And some <span style='font-size:18pt; color:black'>large</span> text."
  ),
  x = c(.2, .1, .5, .9),
  y = c(.8, .4, .1, .5),
  hjust = c(0.5, 0, 0, 1),
  vjust = c(0.5, 1, 0, 0.5),
  angle = c(0, 0, 45, -45),
  color = c("black", "blue", "black", "red"),
  fill = c("cornsilk", "white", "lightblue1", "white")
)

ggplot(df) +
  aes(
    x, y, label = label, angle = angle, color = color, fill = fill,
    hjust = hjust, vjust = vjust
  ) +
  geom_richtext() +
  geom_point(color = "black", size = 2) +
  scale_color_identity() +
  scale_fill_identity() +
  xlim(0, 1) + ylim(0, 1)
  
# labels without frame or background are also possible
ggplot(df) +
  aes(
    x, y, label = label, angle = angle, color = color,
    hjust = hjust, vjust = vjust
  ) +
  geom_richtext(
    fill = NA, label.color = NA, # remove background and outline
    label.padding = grid::unit(rep(0, 4), "pt") # remove padding
  ) +
  geom_point(color = "black", size = 2) +
  scale_color_identity() +
  xlim(0, 1) + ylim(0, 1)

Draw boxes containing text

Description

Draw boxes of defined width and height containing word-wrapped text. Multiple boxes can be drawn at once. Most styling parameters can be used as aesthetics and can be applied separately to each text box drawn. The exception is styling parameters that are specified as grid units (e.g., box.padding or box.r), which can only be specified for all text boxes at once. See examples for details.

Usage

geom_textbox(
  mapping = NULL,
  data = NULL,
  stat = "identity",
  position = "identity",
  ...,
  nudge_x = 0,
  nudge_y = 0,
  box.padding = unit(c(5.5, 5.5, 5.5, 5.5), "pt"),
  box.margin = unit(c(0, 0, 0, 0), "pt"),
  box.r = unit(5.5, "pt"),
  width = unit(2, "inch"),
  minwidth = NULL,
  maxwidth = NULL,
  height = NULL,
  minheight = NULL,
  maxheight = NULL,
  na.rm = FALSE,
  show.legend = NA,
  inherit.aes = TRUE
)

Arguments

mapping

data

The data to be displayed in this layer. There are three options:

If NULL, the default, the data is inherited from the plot data as specified in the call to ggplot().

A data.frame, or other object, will override the plot data. All objects will be fortified to produce a data frame. See fortify() for which variables will be created.

stat

A Stat ggproto subclass, for example StatCount.
A string naming the stat. To give the stat as a string, strip the function name of the stat_ prefix. For example, to use stat_count(), give the stat as "count".
For more information and other ways to specify the stat, see the layer stat documentation.

position

A position adjustment to use on the data for this layer. This can be used in various ways, including to prevent overplotting and improving the display. The position argument accepts the following:

The result of calling a position function, such as position_jitter(). This method allows for passing extra arguments to the position.
A string naming the position adjustment. To give the position as a string, strip the function name of the position_ prefix. For example, to use position_jitter(), give the position as "jitter".
For more information and other ways to specify the position, see the layer position documentation.

...

Static aesthetics that are not mapped to a scale, but are at a fixed value and apply to the layer as a whole. For example, colour = "red" or linewidth = 3. The geom's documentation has an Aesthetics section that lists the available options. The 'required' aesthetics cannot be passed on to the params. Please note that while passing unmapped aesthetics as vectors is technically possible, the order and required length is not guaranteed to be parallel to the input data.
When constructing a layer using a ⁠stat_*()⁠ function, the ... argument can be used to pass on parameters to the geom part of the layer. An example of this is stat_density(geom = "area", outline.type = "both"). The geom's documentation lists which parameters it can accept.
Inversely, when constructing a layer using a ⁠geom_*()⁠ function, the ... argument can be used to pass on parameters to the stat part of the layer. An example of this is geom_area(stat = "density", adjust = 0.5). The stat's documentation lists which parameters it can accept.
The key_glyph argument of layer() may also be passed on through .... This can be one of the functions described as key glyphs, to change the display of the layer in the legend.

nudge_x, nudge_y

Horizontal and vertical adjustment to nudge text boxes by. Useful for offsetting text from points, particularly on discrete scales. Cannot be jointly specified with position.

box.padding

Unit vector of length four specifying the padding inside the text box.

box.margin

Unit vector of length four specifying the margin outside the text box.

box.r

Unit vector of length one specifying the radius of the box.

width, height

Unit values specifying the width and height of the text box (including margins!). If height = NULL (the default), the height is chosen automatically to accommodate all the text.

minwidth, maxwidth, minheight, maxheight

Unit values specifying the minimum and maximum values for width and height, respectively. If set to NULL, are not enforced.

na.rm

If FALSE, the default, missing values are removed with a warning. If TRUE, missing values are silently removed.

show.legend

inherit.aes

Value

A ggplot2 layer that can be added to a plot created with ggplot2::ggplot().

Aesthetics

geom_textbox() understands the following aesthetics (required aesthetics are in bold; select aesthetics are annotated):

x
y
label
alpha
box.colour Color of box outline. Overrides colour.
box.size Width of box outline.
colour Default color of box text and box outline.
family
fontface
fill Default fill color of box background.
group
halign Horizontal alignment of text inside box.
hjust Horizontal alignment of box.
lineheight
orientation One of "upright", "left-rotated", "right-rotated", "inverted".
size Default font size of box text.
text.colour Color of box text. Overrides colour.
valign Vertical alignment of text inside box.
vjust Vertical alignment of box.

Examples

library(ggplot2)

df <- data.frame(
  label = rep("Lorem ipsum dolor **sit amet,** consectetur adipiscing elit,
    sed do *eiusmod tempor incididunt* ut labore et dolore magna
    aliqua.", 2),
  x = c(0, .6),
  y = c(1, .6),
  hjust = c(0, 0),
  vjust = c(1, 0),
  orientation = c("upright", "right-rotated"),
  color = c("black", "blue"),
  fill = c("cornsilk", "white")
)

ggplot(df) +
  aes(
    x, y, label = label, color = color, fill = fill,
    hjust = hjust, vjust = vjust,
    orientation = orientation
  ) +
  geom_textbox(width = unit(0.4, "npc")) +
  geom_point(color = "black", size = 2) +
  scale_discrete_identity(aesthetics = c("color", "fill", "orientation")) +
  xlim(0, 1) + ylim(0, 1)

Package {ggtext}

Improved text rendering support for ggplot2

Description

Author(s)

See Also

Key glyph for rich text

Description

Usage

Arguments

Value

Examples

Theme element that enables markdown text.

Description

Usage

Arguments

Value

See Also

Theme element that enables markdown text in a box.

Description

Usage

Arguments

Value

See Also

Examples

Richtext labels

Description

Usage

Arguments

Value

Aesthetics

See Also

Examples

Draw boxes containing text

Description

Usage

Arguments

Value

Aesthetics

See Also

Examples