Remove grid background color and top and right borders from ggplot2

Question

I would like to reproduce the plot immediately below by using ggplot2   I can come close  but cannot remove the top and right borders   Below I present several attempts using ggplot2  including several suggestions found on or via Stackoverflow   Unfortunately I have not been able to get those suggestions to work    I am hoping someone may be able to correct one or more of the code snippets below   Thank you for any suggestions     desired plot a  lt - seq 1 20  b  lt - a 0 25 plot a b  bty    l     library ggplot2   df  lt - as data frame cbind a b      1  ggplot2 default ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b     geom point      2  removes background color ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b     geom point     opts panel background   theme rect fill  white   colour  black       3  also removes gridlines none  lt - theme blank   ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b     geom point     opts panel background   theme rect fill  white   colour  black      opts panel grid major   none  panel grid minor   none     4  does not remove top and right border ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b     geom point     opts panel background   theme rect fill  white   colour  black      opts panel grid major   none  panel grid minor   none    opts panel border   none     5  does not remove top and right border ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b     geom point     opts panel background   theme rect fill  white   colour  black      opts panel grid major   none  panel grid minor   none    opts axis line   theme segment       6  removes x and y axis in addition to top and right border   http   stackoverflow com questions 5458409 remove-top-and-right-border-from-ggplot2 ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b     geom point     opts panel background   theme rect fill  white   colour  black      opts panel grid major   none  panel grid minor   none    opts panel background theme rect colour NA      7  returns error when attempting to remove top and right border   https   groups google com group ggplot2 browse thread thread f998d113638bf251     Error in el        could not find function  polylineGrob    theme L border  lt - function colour    black   size   1  linetype   1        structure        function x   0  y   0  width   1  height   1                 polylineGrob            x c x width  x  x   y c y y y height        default units    npc             gp gpar lwd size  col colour  lty linetype                            class    theme         type    box         call   match call            ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b     geom point     opts panel background   theme rect fill  white   colour  black      opts panel grid major   none  panel grid minor   none    opts  panel border   theme L border

User · Answer

The above options do not work for maps created with sf and geom sf    Hence  I want to add the relevant ndiscr parameter here  This will create a  nice clean map showing only the features    library sf  library ggplot2   ggplot        geom sf data   some shp       theme minimal                           white background   theme axis text   element blank         remove geographic coordinates         axis ticks   element blank        remove ticks   coord sf ndiscr   0                     remove grid in the background

User · Answer

Here s an extremely simple answer  yourPlot     theme      panel border   element blank         panel grid major   element blank        panel grid minor   element blank         axis line   element line colour    black           It s that easy  Source  the end of this article

User · Answer

An alternative to theme classic   is the theme that comes with the cowplot package  theme cowplot    loaded automatically with the package   It looks similar to theme classic    with a few subtle differences  Most importantly  the default label sizes are larger  so the resulting figures can be used in publications without further modifications needed  in particular if you save them with save plot   instead of ggsave     Also  the background is transparent  not white  which may be useful if you want to edit the figure in illustrator  Finally  faceted plots look better  in my opinion   Example   library cowplot  a  lt - seq 1 20  b  lt - a 0 25 df  lt - as data frame cbind a b    p  lt - ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b     geom point   save plot  plot png   p    alternative to ggsave  with default settings that work well with the theme   This is what the file plot png produced by this code looks like    Disclaimer  I m the package author

User · Answer

EDIT  Ignore this answer  There are now better answers  See the comments  Use   theme classic    EDIT  This is a better version  The bug mentioned below in the original post remains  I think   But the axis line is drawn under the panel  Therefore  remove both the panel border and panel background to see the axis lines   library ggplot2  a  lt - seq 1 20  b  lt - a 0 25 df  lt - as data frame cbind a b    ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b     geom point       theme bw       theme axis line   element line colour    black        panel grid major   element blank        panel grid minor   element blank        panel border   element blank        panel background   element blank         Original post This gets close  There was a bug with axis line not working on the y-axis  see here   that appears not to be fixed yet  Therefore  after removing the panel border  the y-axis has to be drawn in separately using geom vline   library ggplot2  library grid   a  lt - seq 1 20  b  lt - a 0 25 df  lt - as data frame cbind a b    p   ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b     geom point        scale y continuous expand   c 0 0        scale x continuous expand   c 0 0        theme bw        opts axis line   theme segment colour    black            panel grid major   theme blank            panel grid minor   theme blank            panel border   theme blank          geom vline xintercept   0  p   The extreme points are clipped  but the clipping can be undone using code by baptiste    gt  lt - ggplot gtable ggplot build p   gt layout clip gt layout name   panel    lt -  off  grid draw gt      Or use limits to move the boundaries of the panel   ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b     geom point        xlim 0 22     ylim  95  2 1       scale x continuous expand   c 0 0   limits   c 0 22        scale y continuous expand   c 0 0   limits   c  95  2 2           theme bw        opts axis line   theme segment colour    black            panel grid major   theme blank            panel grid minor   theme blank            panel border   theme blank          geom vline xintercept   0

User · Answer

I followed Andrew s answer  but I also had to follow https   stackoverflow com a 35833548 and set the x and y axes separately due to a bug in my version of ggplot  v2 1 0     Instead of   theme axis line   element line color    black      I used   theme axis line x   element line color  black   size   2       axis line y   element line color  black   size   2

User · Answer

Simplification from the above Andrew s answer leads to this key theme to generate the half border   theme  panel border   element blank           axis line      element line color  black

User · Answer

Recent updates to ggplot  0 9 2   have overhauled the syntax for themes   Most notably  opts   is now deprecated  having been replaced by theme     Sandy s answer will still  as of Jan  12  generates a chart  but causes R to throw a bunch of warnings     Here s updated code reflecting current ggplot syntax   library ggplot2  a  lt - seq 1 20  b  lt - a 0 25 df  lt - as data frame cbind a b     base ggplot object p  lt - ggplot df  aes x   a  y   b    p      plots the points   geom point         theme with white background   theme bw         eliminates background  gridlines  and chart border   theme      plot background   element blank        panel grid major   element blank        panel grid minor   element blank        panel border   element blank             draws x and y axis line   theme axis line   element line color    black      generates

[r] Remove grid, background color, and top and right borders from ggplot2

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