Center Plot title in ggplot2

Question

This simple code  and all my scripts from this morning  has started giving me an off center title in ggplot2  Ubuntu version  16 04  R studio version  Version 0 99 896  R version  3 3 2  GGPLOT2 version  2 2 0  I have freshly installed the above this morning to try and fix this    dat  lt - data frame  time   factor c  quot Lunch quot   quot Dinner quot    levels c  quot Lunch quot   quot Dinner quot     total bill   c 14 89  17 23       Add title  narrower bars  fill color  and change axis labels ggplot data dat  aes x time  y total bill  fill time        geom bar colour  quot black quot   fill  quot  DD8888 quot   width  8  stat  quot identity quot        guides fill FALSE      xlab  quot Time of day quot     ylab  quot Total bill quot       ggtitle  quot Average bill for 2 people quot

User · Answer

If you are working a lot with graphs and ggplot, you might be tired to add the theme() each time. If you don't want to change the default theme as suggested earlier, you may find easier to create your own personal theme.

personal_theme = theme(plot.title = 
element_text(hjust = 0.5))

Say you have multiple graphs, p1, p2 and p3, just add personal_theme to them.

p1 + personal_theme
p2 + personal_theme
p3 + personal_theme

dat <- data.frame(
  time = factor(c("Lunch","Dinner"), 
levels=c("Lunch","Dinner")),
  total_bill = c(14.89, 17.23)
)
p1 = ggplot(data=dat, aes(x=time, y=total_bill, 
fill=time)) + 
  geom_bar(colour="black", fill="#DD8888", 
width=.8, stat="identity") + 
  guides(fill=FALSE) +
  xlab("Time of day") + ylab("Total bill") +
  ggtitle("Average bill for 2 people")

p1 + personal_theme

User · Answer

From the release news of ggplot 2 2 0   The main plot title is now left-aligned to better work better with a subtitle   See also the plot title argument in  theme   left-aligned by default    As pointed out by  J F  you may add theme plot title   element text hjust   0 5   to center the title   ggplot       ggtitle  Default in 2 2 0 is left-aligned       ggplot       ggtitle  Use theme plot title   element text hjust   0 5   to center       theme plot title   element text hjust   0 5

User · Answer

As stated in the answer by Henrik  titles are left-aligned by default starting with ggplot 2 2 0  Titles can be centered by adding this to the plot   theme plot title   element text hjust   0 5     However  if you create many plots  it may be tedious to add this line everywhere  One could then also change the default behaviour of ggplot with  theme update plot title   element text hjust   0 5     Once you have run this line  all plots created afterwards will use the theme setting plot title   element text hjust   0 5  as their default   theme update plot title   element text hjust   0 5   ggplot     ggtitle  Default is now set to centered       To get back to the original ggplot2 default settings you can either restart the R session or choose the default theme with  theme set theme gray

User · Answer

The ggeasy package has a function called easy center title   to do just that  I find it much more appealing than theme plot title   element text hjust   0 5   and it s so much easier to remember   ggplot data   dat  aes time  total bill  fill   time        geom bar colour    black   fill     DD8888   width    8  stat    identity        guides fill   FALSE      xlab  Time of day       ylab  Total bill       ggtitle  Average bill for 2 people       ggeasy  easy center title       Note that as of writing this answer you will need to install the development version of ggeasy from GitHub to use easy center title    You can do so by running remotes  install github  jonocarroll ggeasy

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