(Tutorial) PCH in R - DataCamp

1/1/2021 (Tutorial) PCH in R - DataCamp
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October 23rd, 2020
R PROGRAMMING +2
PCH in R
Plot character or pch is the standard argument to set the character that will be plotted in
a number of R functions.
Explanatory text can be added to a plot in several different forms, including axis labels,
titles, legends, or a text added to the plot itself. Base graphics functions in R typically
create axis labels by default, although these can be overridden through the argument
xlab() that allows us to provide our own x-axis label and ylab() that allows us to
provide our own y-axis label.
Some base graphics functions also provide default titles, but again, these can be
overridden has we see here:
library(MASS)
par(mfrow = c(1, 2))
plot(density(geyser$waiting))
plot(density(geyser$waiting), main = "Estimated density: \n Old Faithful waiting times")
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The plot on the left uses the default title returned by the density function, which tells us
that the plot was generated by this function using its default options and also gives the R
speci cation for the variable whose density we are plotting. In the right-hand plot, this
default title has been overridden by specifying the optional argument main. Note that by
including the return character, backslash n, we are creating a two-line title in this
character string.
text() Function
Like the lines and points functions, text is a low-level graphics function that allows us to
add explanatory text to the existing plot. To do this, we must specify the values for x and
y, the coordinates on the plot where the text should appear, and labels, a character vector
that speci es the text to be added.
text(x, y, adj)
By default, the text added to the plot is centered at the speci ed x values, but the optional
argument adj can be used to modify the alignment.
It is noted that the adj argument to the text() function determines the horizontal
placement of the text, and it can take any value between 0 (left-justi ed text) and 1 (right-
justi ed text). In fact, this argument can take values outside this range. That is, making
this value negative causes the text to start to the right of the speci ed x position.
Similarly, making adj greater than 1 causes the text to end to the left of the x position.
library(MASS)
plot(UScereal$fibre)
text(5, 28, "<-- Outliers [left-justified text at (5, 28)]", adj = 0)
text(65, 23, "[Right-justified text at (65, 23)]", adj = 1, col = "red")
text(5, 28, "[Centered text (default) at (31, 18)]", col = "blue")
Fonts, Orientations, and Other Text Features
Below we see some of the ways the appearance of added text can be changed through
optional arguments to the text function. By default, text is created horizontally across the
page, but this can be changed with the srt argument, which speci es the angle of
orientation with respect to the horizontal axis.
Next, the text in red angles upward as a result of specifying srt as the positive value 30
degrees, while the text in green angles downward by specifying srt equals -45.
We can also specify the color of the text with the col argument, and the red text shows
that we can change the text size with the cex argument. By specifying cex = 1.2 , we
have speci ed the text to be 20% larger than normal.
The other text characteristic that has been modi ed in this example is the font, set by the
font argument. The default value is font = 1 , which speci es normal text, while
font = 2 speci es boldface, font = 3 speci es italics, and font = 4 speci es both
boldface and italics.
library(MASS)
plot(Boston$rad)
# "Inner city" with adjusted colour and rotation

text(350, 24, adj = 1, "Inner city? -->", srt = 30, font = 2, cex = 1.2, col = "red")
# "Suburbs" with adjusted colour and rotation

text(100, 15, "Suburbs? -->", srt = -45, font = 3, col = "green")
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title("Text with varying orientations, fonts, sizes & colors")
Adjusting Text Position, Size, and Font

In the following example, you will:
Create a plot of MPG.city vs. Horsepower from the Cars93 data frame, with data
represented as open circles (default pch ).
Construct the variable index3 using the which() function that identi es the row
numbers containing all 3-cylinder cars.
Use the points() function to overlay solid circles, pch = 16 , on top of all points in
the plot that represent 3-cylinder cars.
Use the text() function with the Make variable as before to add labels to the right of
the 3-cylinder cars, but now use adj = 0.2 to move the labels further to the right, use
the cex argument to increase the label size by 20 percent, and use the font
argument to make the labels bold italic.
# Plot MPG.city vs. Horsepower as open circles

plot(Cars93$Horsepower, Cars93$MPG.city)
# Create index3, pointing to 3-cylinder cars
index3 <- which(Cars93$Cylinders == 3)
# Highlight 3-cylinder cars as solid circles

points(Cars93$Horsepower[index3],
Cars93$MPG.city[index3],
pch = 16)
# Add car names, offset from points, with larger bold text
text(Cars93$Horsepower[index3],
Cars93$MPG.city[index3],
Cars93$Make[index3],
adj = -0.2, cex = 1.2, font = 4)
When we run the above code, it produces the following result:
Try it for yourself.
To learn more about adding text to plots, please see this video from our course Data
Visualization in R.
Data Visualization in R: Adding text to plots
This content is taken from DataCamp’s Data Visualization in R course by Ronald Pearson.
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Fonts, Orientations, and Other Text Features

# "Inner city" with adjusted colour and rotation

# "Suburbs" with adjusted colour and rotation

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Adjusting Text Position, Size, and Font

# Plot MPG.city vs. Horsepower as open circles

# Create index3, pointing to 3-cylinder cars

index3 <- which(Cars93$Cylinders == 3)

# Highlight 3-cylinder cars as solid circles

When we run the above code, it produces the following result:

Try it for yourself.

Data Visualization in R: Adding text to plots

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