How to format number values for ggplot2 legend?

Question

I am working on finishing up a graph generated using ggplot2 like so...

ggplot(timeSeries, aes(x=Date, y=Unique.Visitors, colour=Revenue)) 
+ geom_point() + stat_smooth() + scale_y_continuous(formatter=comma)

I have attached the result and you can see the numeric values in the legend for Revenue do not have a comma. How can I add a comma to those values? I was able to use scale_y_continuous for the axis, can that be used for the legend also?

alt text

score 60 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

60

Just to keep current, in ggplot2_0.9.3 the working syntax is:

require(scales)
ggplot(timeSeries, aes(x=Date, y=Unique.Visitors, colour=Revenue)) +
    geom_point() +
    stat_smooth() +
    scale_y_continuous(labels=comma) +
    scale_colour_continuous(labels=comma)

Also see this exchange

edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

Community

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1

answered Feb 21 '13 at 16:17

metasequoia

7,014
5
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Use ``scale_size_continuous(labels = comma)`` if you have set ``size`` (rather than ``colour``) inside the ``aes()``, and likewise with shape and fill I guess. – PatrickT Nov 14 '15 at 19:07

score 14 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

Note 2014-07-16: the syntax in this answer has been obsolete for some time. Use metasequoia's answer!

Yep - just a matter of getting the right scale_colour_ layer figured out. Try:

ggplot(timeSeries, aes(x = Date, y = Unique.Visitors, colour = Revenue)) +
    geom_point() +
    stat_smooth() +
    scale_y_continuous(formatter = comma) +
    scale_colour_continuous(formatter = comma)

I personally would also move my the colour mapping to the geom_point layer, so that it doesn't give you that odd line behind the dot in the legend:

ggplot(timeSeries, aes(x = Date, y = Unique.Visitors)) +
    geom_point(aes(colour = Revenue)) +
    stat_smooth() +
    scale_y_continuous(formatter = comma) +
    scale_colour_continuous(formatter = comma)

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered May 18 '18 at 05:43

8

...as I stumbled over this older thread, maybe it makes sense to add you need to load library("scales"), otherwise you get the following error message

Error in check_breaks_labels(breaks, labels) : object 'comma' not found

answered May 18 '18 at 05:43

TomS

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Needed to re-install the "scales" package and load it manually to get this solution to work – Martin Boros Jun 13 '18 at 20:11
You may overcome this by using `scale_y_continuous(labels=scales::comma)` – janverkade Mar 23 '20 at 18:34

How to format number values for ggplot2 legend?

3 Answers3

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