
Dear R users,

I am trying to reverse the orientation of axis labels and title in the right margin of a plot, so that they read from top to bottom. I know that this can be done using text() as follows: 

par(mar=c(5,4,4,4)+.1)
plot(1:4,las=0)
par(new=T)
y <- rnorm(4)
plot(y,axes=FALSE,ann=FALSE,pch=17)
axis(4,labels=FALSE)
par(xpd=TRUE)
text(x=par("usr")[2]+.25,y=axTicks(4),labels=axTicks(4),srt=-90)
text(x=par("usr")[2]+.5,y=sum(par("usr")[3:4])/2,labels="titel",srt=-90)
par(xpd=FALSE)

the problem is that I have to manually reset the x and y coordinates of the text whenever the plot is resized. This is problematic if I want to automatize the production of a number of plots (or produce different output formats), or to make sure that the labels and title in the right axis are at an equal distance from the plot as the labels and title on the left axis. Now I can only guess it on sight. 

mtext() allows me to set the distance, but not to reverse the orientation of the text. 

I could use text() to also produce the left axis, like that labels on both sides can be at the exact same distance from the plot, but then I want to determine the plot margins relative to the plot dimensions. 

Does anyone see a solution to my problem that doesn't involve trial and error for the x coordinate?

thanks
Karel



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