[R] Metafor and forest(); not showing 'ilab' and text

[Viechtbauer Wolfgang (STAT)]

The 'xlim' argument does not change the actual width of the plotting device. For that, you need to use the 'width' argument with whatever device you are actually using. You can then use the 'xlim' argument to create appropriate spacing to the left/right of the part of the plot that shows the estimates and their CIs. Within that space, you can then add additional columns with the 'ilab' argument. It's up to you to find an appropriate combination of plotting device width, character/symbol expansion factor ('cex' argument), 'xlim' values, and 'ilab.xpos' values to create a nice looking plot that has no overlapping text and no excessive white space. An example is this:

http://www.metafor-project.org/doku.php/plots:forest_plot_with_subgroups 

Note that it took me dozens of iterations to create that plot. You just have to start experimenting.

Best,
Wolfgang

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Marco Colagrossi [mailto:marco.colagrossi at gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2015 17:59
> To: Viechtbauer Wolfgang (STAT)
> Cc: r-help at r-project.org; Michael Dewey
> Subject: Re: [R] Metafor and forest(); not showing 'ilab' and text
> 
> Thanks again for your help. I'm sorry to bother you but I don't get
> how to widen the forest plot; if I try to change the values of xlim or
> the ilab.xpos values the width of the forest plot region does not
> change, but only moves on the graphs. What I'm I missing?
> 
> 
> forest(pc, var, ci95m, ci95p, slab = authoryear, psize=1,
> subset=(pub==1),
>        xlim = c(-16, 6),
>        ilab = data.frame(SIMdv, SIMiv),
>        ilab.xpos = c(-7.5, -5.5), cex = 0.75)
> op <- par(cex=.75, font=2)
>       text(c(-7.5, -5.5), 54, c("DV", "IV"))
>       text(-16,                54, "Author(s) and Year",     pos=4)
>       text(6,                  54, "Outcome [95% CI]", pos=2)
> par(op)
> > par("usr")[1:2]
> [1] -16   6