Is there a way to change the spacing between legend items in ggplot2

Question

Is there a way to change the spacing between legend items in ggplot2  I currently have  legend position   top     which automatically produces a horizontal legend  However  the spacing of the items is very close together and I am wondering how to space them farther apart

User · Answer

Now that opts is deprecated in ggplot2 package  function theme should be used instead   library grid    for unit         theme legend key height unit 3  line          theme legend key width unit 3  line

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To add spacing between entries in a legend  adjust the margins of the theme element legend text    To add 30pt of space to the right of each legend label  may be useful for a horizontal legend    p   theme legend text   element text      margin   margin r   30  unit    pt       To add 30pt of space to the left of each legend label  may be useful for a vertical legend    p   theme legend text   element text      margin   margin l   30  unit    pt       for a ggplot2 object p  The keywords are legend text and margin    Note about edit  When this answer was first posted  there was a bug  The bug has now been fixed

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Looks like the best approach  in 2018  is to use legend key size under the theme object   e g   see here     Set-up      library ggplot2      library gridExtra       gp  lt - ggplot data   mtcars  aes mpg  cyl  colour   factor cyl              geom point     This is real easy if you are using theme bw        gpbw  lt - gp   theme bw     Change spacing size     g1bw  lt - gpbw   theme legend key size   unit 0   lines      g2bw  lt - gpbw   theme legend key size   unit 1 5   lines      g3bw  lt - gpbw   theme legend key size   unit 3   lines       grid arrange g1bw g2bw g3bw nrow 3      However  this doesn t work quite so well otherwise  e g   if you need the grey background on your legend symbol      g1  lt - gp   theme legend key size   unit 0   lines      g2  lt - gp   theme legend key size   unit 1 5   lines      g3  lt - gp   theme legend key size   unit 3   lines       grid arrange g1 g2 g3 nrow 3    Notice that the legend symbol squares get bigger  that s what legend key size does      Let s  indirectly   control  that  too    gp2  lt - g3   g4  lt - gp2   theme legend key   element rect size   1     g5  lt - gp2   theme legend key   element rect size   3     g6  lt - gp2   theme legend key   element rect size   10      grid arrange g4 g5 g6 nrow 3     see picture below  left   Notice that white squares begin blocking legend title  and eventually the graph itself if we kept increasing the value       This shows you why      gt  lt - gp2   theme legend key   element rect size   10 color    yellow         I haven t quite found a work-around for fixing the above problem    Let me know in the comments if you have an idea  and I ll update accordingly    I wonder if there is some way to re-layer things using  layers

User · Answer

A simple fix that I use to add space in horizontal legends  simply add spaces in the labels  see extract below      scale fill manual values c  red   blue   white                        labels c  Label of category 1                                           Label of category 2                                           Label of category 3

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I think the best option is to use guide legend within guides   p   guides fill guide legend                   keywidth 0 1                   keyheight 0 1                   default unit  inch             Note the use of default unit   no need to load grid package

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Use any of these  legend spacing   unit 1  cm   legend spacing x   unit 1  cm   legend spacing y   unit 1  cm

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ggplot2 v3 0 0 released in July 2018 has working options to modify legend spacing x  legend spacing y and legend text   Example  Increase horizontal spacing between legend keys library ggplot2   ggplot mtcars  aes factor cyl   fill   factor cyl         geom bar       coord flip       scale fill brewer  quot Cyl quot   palette    quot Dark2 quot       theme minimal base size   14      theme legend position    top            legend spacing x   unit 1 0   cm      Note  If you only want to expand the spacing to the right of the legend text  use stringr  str pad   Example  Move the legend key labels to the bottom and increase vertical spacing ggplot mtcars  aes factor cyl   fill   factor cyl         geom bar       coord flip       scale fill brewer  quot Cyl quot   palette    quot Dark2 quot       theme minimal base size   14      theme legend position    top            legend spacing x   unit 1 0   cm            legend text   element text margin   margin t   10        guides fill   guide legend title    quot Cyl quot                                label position    quot bottom quot                                title position    quot left quot   title vjust   1      Example  for scale fill xxx  amp  guide colorbar ggplot mtcars  aes mpg  wt       geom point aes fill   hp   pch   I 21   size   5     scale fill viridis c guide   FALSE      theme classic base size   14      theme legend position    top            legend spacing x   unit 0 5   cm            legend text   element text margin   margin t   10        guides fill   guide colorbar title    quot HP quot                                  label position    quot bottom quot                                  title position    quot left quot   title vjust   1                                   draw border around the legend                                frame colour    quot black quot                                  barwidth   15                                 barheight   1 5       For vertical legends  settinglegend key size only increases the size of the legend keys  not the vertical space between them ggplot mtcars      aes x   cyl  fill   factor cyl       geom bar       scale fill brewer  quot Cyl quot   palette    quot Dark2 quot       theme minimal base size   14      theme legend key size   unit 1   quot cm quot      In order to increase the distance between legend keys  modification of the legend-draw r function is needed  See this issue for more info   function to increase vertical spacing between legend keys    clauswilke draw key polygon3  lt - function data  params  size      lwd  lt - min data size  min size    4       grid  rectGrob      width   grid  unit 0 6   quot npc quot        height   grid  unit 0 6   quot npc quot        gp   grid  gpar        col   data colour        fill   alpha data fill  data alpha         lty   data linetype        lwd   lwd    pt        linejoin    quot mitre quot                this step is not needed anymore per tjebo s comment below     see also  https   ggplot2 tidyverse org reference draw key html   register new key drawing function     the effect is global  amp  persistent throughout the R session   GeomBar draw key   draw key polygon3  ggplot mtcars      aes x   cyl  fill   factor cyl       geom bar key glyph    quot polygon3 quot       scale fill brewer  quot Cyl quot   palette    quot Dark2 quot       theme minimal base size   14      theme legend key   element rect color   NA  fill   NA           legend key size   unit 1 5   quot cm quot        theme legend title align   0 5

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From Koshke s work on ggplot2 and his blog  Koshke s blog          theme legend key height unit 3  line      Change 3 to X       theme legend key width unit 3  line      Change 3 to X   Type theme get   in the console to see other editable legend attributes

[r] Is there a way to change the spacing between legend items in ggplot2?

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