Adjust spacing between text in horizontal legend

Question

I have a plot with a horizontal legend:

 legend(\"bottomleft\", inset = c(0, -0.3), bty = \"n\",
        x.intersp=0, xjust=0,yjust=0,
        legend=c(\"AAP         


        

Answer 1

On my system (platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32, R version: 3.4.1 (2017-06-30)) the solutions provided so far by Andre Silva and pangja are not satisfactory. Both solutions require user input and are dependent on the device size. Since I get never used to the text.width command and always had to adjust the values with try-and-error, I wrote the function (f.horlegend). The function has similar arguments as the function legend and is based on the idea posted here.

The function creates a horizontal (one row) legend, which can be positioned by the commands known from the function legend, e.g. "bottomleft"

f.horlegend <- function(pos, legend, xoff = 0, yoff = 0, 
  lty = 0, lwd = 1, ln.col = 1, seg.len = 0.04, 
  pch = NA, pt.col = 1, pt.bg = NA, pt.cex = par("cex"), pt.lwd = lwd, 
  text.cex = par("cex"), text.col = par("col"), text.font = NULL, text.vfont = NULL, 
  bty = "o", bbord = "black", bbg = par("bg"), blty = par("lty"), blwd = par("lwd"), bdens = NULL, bbx.adj = 0, bby.adj = 0.75 
) {

  ### get original par values and re-set them at end of function
  op <- par(no.readonly = TRUE)
  on.exit(par(op))

  ### new par with dimension [0,1]
  par(new=TRUE, xaxs="i", yaxs="i", xpd=TRUE)
  plot.new()

  ### spacing between legend elements
  d0 <- 0.01 * (1 + bbx.adj)
  d1 <- 0.01
  d2 <- 0.02
  pch.len <- 0.008
  ln.len <- seg.len/2

  n.lgd <- length(legend)

  txt.h <- strheight(legend[1], cex = text.cex, font = text.font, vfont = text.vfont) *(1 + bby.adj)
  i.pch <- seq(1, 2*n.lgd, 2)
  i.txt <- seq(2, 2*n.lgd, 2)

  ### determine x positions of legend elements
  X <- c(d0 + pch.len, pch.len + d1, rep(strwidth(legend[-n.lgd])+d2+pch.len, each=2))
  X[i.txt[-1]] <- pch.len+d1

  ### adjust symbol space if line is drawn
  if (any(lty != 0)) {
    lty <- rep(lty, n.lgd)[1:n.lgd]
    ln.sep <- rep(ln.len - pch.len, n.lgd)[lty]
    ln.sep[is.na(ln.sep)] <- 0
    X <- X + rep(ln.sep, each=2)
    lty[is.na(lty)] <- 0
  } 

  X <- cumsum(X)

  ### legend box coordinates
  bstart <- 0
  bend <- X[2*n.lgd]+strwidth(legend[n.lgd])+d0

  ### legend position
  if (pos == "top" | pos == "bottom" | pos == "center") x_corr <- 0.5 - bend/2 +xoff
  if (pos == "bottomright" | pos == "right" | pos == "topright") x_corr <- 1. - bend + xoff
  if (pos == "bottomleft" | pos == "left" | pos == "topleft") x_corr <- 0 + xoff

  if (pos == "bottomleft" | pos == "bottom" | pos == "bottomright") Y <- txt.h/2 + yoff
  if (pos == "left" | pos == "center" | pos =="right") Y <- 0.5 + yoff
  if (pos == "topleft" | pos == "top" | pos == "topright") Y <- 1  - txt.h/2 + yoff

  Y <- rep(Y, n.lgd)
  ### draw legend box
  if (bty != "n") rect(bstart+x_corr, Y-txt.h/2, x_corr+bend, Y+txt.h/2, border=bbord, col=bbg, lty=blty, lwd=blwd, density=bdens)

  ### draw legend symbols and text
  segments(X[i.pch]+x_corr-ln.len, Y, X[i.pch]+x_corr+ln.len, Y, col = ln.col, lty = lty, lwd = lwd)
  points(X[i.pch]+x_corr, Y, pch = pch, col = pt.col, bg = pt.bg, cex = pt.cex, lwd = pt.lwd)
  text(X[i.txt]+x_corr, Y, legend, pos=4, offset=0, cex = text.cex, col = text.col, font = text.font, vfont = text.vfont)

}

Arguments

pos position of the legend (c("bottomleft", "bottom", "bottomright", "left", "center", "right", "topleft", "top", "topright"))

legend legend text

xoff adjustement of position in x-direction. NB: the legend is plotted on a plot with limits = c(0,1)

yoff same as xoff but in y-directin

lty The line type. Line types can only be specified as an integer (0=blank, 1=solid (default), 2=dashed, 3=dotted, 4=dotdash, 5=longdash, 6=twodash)

lwd The line width, a positive number, defaulting to 1

ln.col The line color

seg.len The length of the line, deafult to 0.04

pch An integer specifying the symbol.

pt.col The symbol color.

pt.bg The background color of the symbol.

pt.cex expansion factor for the symbol

pt.lwd line width of symbol

text.cex expansion factor for the text

text.col text color

text.font text font

text.vfont see vfont in text-help

bty the type of box to be drawn around the legend. The allowed values are "o" (the default) and "n"

bbord color of the legend box border

bbg background color

blty border style

blwd border line width

bdens density of lines, see segment-help

bbx.adj relative value to increase space between text and horizontal box line

bby.adj same as bbx.adj but for vertical boc line

Unfortunately, I don't have time to create a package at the moment. But feel free to use the function. Any comments and ideas to improve the functions are welcome.

Some examples

plot(1:100, rnorm(100))
lgd.text <- c("12", "12")
sapply(c("bottomleft", "bottom", "bottomright", "left", "center", "right", "topleft", "top", "topright"), function(x) f.horlegend(x, lgd.text, pch=16, lty=c(NA, 1), bbg="orange"))


plot(1:100, rnorm(100))
lgd.text <- c("12", "132", "12345")
f.horlegend("topleft", lgd.text, pch=NA)
f.horlegend("top", lgd.text, pch=NA, bby.adj=1.5, bbord="red")
f.horlegend("left", lgd.text, xoff=0.2, pch=1, bby.adj=0, bbord="red", bbg="lightgreen")
f.horlegend("left", lgd.text, xoff=0.2, yoff=-0.05, pch=c(NA, 1, 6), lty=1, bbx.adj=2, bby.adj=0, bbord="red", bbg="lightgreen")

f.horlegend("topright", lgd.text, yoff=0.1, pch=c(1,2,NA), lty=c(NA, NA, 2), bbord="red", blty=2, blwd=2)

lgd.text <- c("12", "123456", "12345", "123")
f.horlegend("bottom", lgd.text, yoff=0.1, pch=c(1,2,NA), lty=c(NA, 1, 2), text.font=2)
f.horlegend("bottom", lgd.text, pch=c(1,2,NA), lty=c(NA, 1, 2), text.font=c(1,2,3))

plot(seq(as.POSIXct("2017-08-30"), as.POSIXct("2017-09-30"), by="weeks"), rnorm(5), type="l")
f.horlegend("topleft", "random values", lty=1)