Thanks Erik, grid.lines() gives me exactly what I wanted. Have a nice weekend! Thomas library(grid) pdf("rect.pdf", paper="a4r") grid.lines(x=c(1,1,3),c(1,2,2),default.units="cm") grid.lines(x=c(1,1,3)+1,c(1,2,2)+0.5,default.units="cm",gp=gpar(col="blue")) dev.off()