Add line break to axis labels and ticks in ggplot

Question

I\'m looking for a way to use long variable names on the x axis of a plot. Of course I could use a smaller font or rotate them a little but I would like keep them vertical a

Answer 1

You can add your own formatter ( see scales package for more examples). Here I replace any space in your x labels by a new line.

addline_format <- function(x,...){
    gsub('\\s','\n',x)
}

myplot + 
    scale_x_discrete(breaks=unique(df_M$variable), 
    labels=addline_format(c("Ambystoma mexicanum", 
                        "Daubentonia madagascariensis", "Psychrolutes marcidus")))