R error “could not find function 'multiplot' ” using Cookbook example

Question

Would like to plot two ggplots on one page. Took the example from Cookbook for R and it doesn't work. The error is could not find function "multiplot".

However ggplots are plotable, also I reinstalled R, ggplot2, restarted, etc.. Am I doing something wrong?

library(ggplot2)

# This example uses the ChickWeight dataset, which comes with ggplot2
# First plot
p1 <- 
  ggplot(ChickWeight, aes(x=Time, y=weight, colour=Diet, group=Chick)) +
  geom_line() +
  ggtitle("Growth curve for individual chicks")

# Second plot
p2 <- 
  ggplot(ChickWeight, aes(x=Time, y=weight, colour=Diet)) +
  geom_point(alpha=.3) +
  geom_smooth(alpha=.2, size=1) +
  ggtitle("Fitted growth curve per diet")

# Third plot
p3 <- 
  ggplot(subset(ChickWeight, Time==21), aes(x=weight, colour=Diet)) +
  geom_density() +
  ggtitle("Final weight, by diet")

# Fourth plot
p4 <- 
  ggplot(subset(ChickWeight, Time==21), aes(x=weight, fill=Diet)) +
  geom_histogram(colour="black", binwidth=50) +
  facet_grid(Diet ~ .) +
  ggtitle("Final weight, by diet") +
  theme(legend.position="none")        # No legend (redundant in this graph)    

multiplot(p1, p2, p3, p4, cols=2)

Answer 1

Quoting from the page you link to:

The easy way is to use the multiplot function, defined at the bottom of this page. If it isn't suitable for your needs, you can copy and modify it.

And the code is:

# Multiple plot function
#
# ggplot objects can be passed in ..., or to plotlist (as a list of ggplot objects)
# - cols:   Number of columns in layout
# - layout: A matrix specifying the layout. If present, 'cols' is ignored.
#
# If the layout is something like matrix(c(1,2,3,3), nrow=2, byrow=TRUE),
# then plot 1 will go in the upper left, 2 will go in the upper right, and
# 3 will go all the way across the bottom.
#
multiplot <- function(..., plotlist=NULL, file, cols=1, layout=NULL) {
  require(grid)

  # Make a list from the ... arguments and plotlist
  plots <- c(list(...), plotlist)

  numPlots = length(plots)

  # If layout is NULL, then use 'cols' to determine layout
  if (is.null(layout)) {
    # Make the panel
    # ncol: Number of columns of plots
    # nrow: Number of rows needed, calculated from # of cols
    layout <- matrix(seq(1, cols * ceiling(numPlots/cols)),
                    ncol = cols, nrow = ceiling(numPlots/cols))
  }

 if (numPlots==1) {
    print(plots[[1]])

  } else {
    # Set up the page
    grid.newpage()
    pushViewport(viewport(layout = grid.layout(nrow(layout), ncol(layout))))

    # Make each plot, in the correct location
    for (i in 1:numPlots) {
      # Get the i,j matrix positions of the regions that contain this subplot
      matchidx <- as.data.frame(which(layout == i, arr.ind = TRUE))

      print(plots[[i]], vp = viewport(layout.pos.row = matchidx$row,
                                      layout.pos.col = matchidx$col))
    }
  }
}

Answer 2

Someone was nice and put the multiplot function in the Rmisc package, so you could use that too.

Answer 3

save this script in your local directory and source it source ("..../multiplot.R") you will then be able to create multiple plots

multiplot <- function(..., plotlist = NULL, file, cols = 1, layout = NULL) {
  require(grid)

  plots <- c(list(...), plotlist)

  numPlots = length(plots)

  if (is.null(layout)) {
    layout <- matrix(seq(1, cols * ceiling(numPlots/cols)),
                 ncol = cols, nrow = ceiling(numPlots/cols))
}

if (numPlots == 1) {
print(plots[[1]])

} else {
grid.newpage()
pushViewport(viewport(layout = grid.layout(nrow(layout), ncol(layout))))

for (i in 1:numPlots) {
  matchidx <- as.data.frame(which(layout == i, arr.ind = TRUE))

  print(plots[[i]], vp = viewport(layout.pos.row = matchidx$row,
                                  layout.pos.col = matchidx$col))
 }
}
 }

Answer 4

If you don't want to include the multiplot function, you can use this:

install.packages("gridExtra")
library("gridExtra")
grid.arrange(g1, g2)

Answer 5

As well as Rmisc and gridExtra, the package easyGgplot2 has the multiplot() function, too.