How can I add labels on the geom line?

Question

Instead of adding legends outside the plot, I want to add names such as "Quantile 1", "Quantile 10" etc. inside the plot as labels.

ggplot() + 
  geom_line(data=df.quants, aes(x=xvars, y=q01), color="black", size =0.5) +
  geom_line(data=df.quants, aes(x=xvars, y=q10), color="black", size =0.7) +
  geom_line(data=df.quants, aes(x=xvars, y=q25), color="black", size =1) +
  geom_line(data=df.quants, aes(x=xvars, y=q50), color="black", size =1.2) +
  geom_line(data=df.quants, aes(x=xvars, y=q75), color="black", size =1) +
  geom_line(data=df.quants, aes(x=xvars, y=q90), color="black", size =0.7) +
  geom_line(data=df.quants, aes(x=xvars, y=q99), color="black", size =0.5) +
  geom_ribbon(data=df.quants,aes(x=xvars,ymin=q25,ymax=q75),alpha=0.8)+
  geom_ribbon(data=df.quants,aes(x=xvars,ymin=q10,ymax=q25),alpha=0.5)+
  geom_ribbon(data=df.quants,aes(x=xvars,ymin=q75,ymax=q90),alpha=0.5)+
  geom_ribbon(data=df.quants,aes(x=xvars,ymin=q01,ymax=q10),alpha=0.2)+
  geom_ribbon(data=df.quants,aes(x=xvars,ymin=q90,ymax=q99),alpha=0.2)+
  theme_bw()+
  ggtitle("Q")+
  ggsave("save.png")

How can I add labels on the plot in either or both of these cases:

At the end of the lines (e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/a/37696769/3942806)
Hovering over the lines towards the left hand side (https://stackoverflow.com/a/37672486/3942806)

dput(df.quants)

structure(list(xvars = c(21.1084, 40.4038, 42.4758, 44.0298, 
    44.8068, 53.0948, 53.3538, 54.3898, 56.4617, 62.9367, 67.3397, 
    68.8937, 68.8937, 74.3327, 78.7356, 80.2896, 87.8006, 95.0526, 
    98.6785, 105.6715, 114.4775, 116.5495, 121.7294, 127.4274, 133.6434, 
    146.3343, 153.0683, 158.2483, 163.6872, 169.9032, 180.7812, 186.4791, 
    186.9971, 194.5081, 196.3211, 203.8321, 209.789, 215.746, 218.336, 
    222.998, 230.7679, 237.5019, 241.1279, 242.12505, 250.9698, 254.0778, 
    264.1788, 274.5387, 284.8987, 292.6687, 303.0286, 310.7986, 326.3385, 
    336.6985, 344.4684, 362.5983, 378.1383, 389.275200000003, 393.6782, 
    409.2181, 427.348, 450.6579, 450.6579, 450.6579, 453.2479, 463.6079, 
    476.5578, 489.5078, 499.8677, 510.2277, 523.1776, 533.5376, 543.8975, 
    567.2074, 611.2372, 613.8272, 621.5971, 637.1371, 652.677, 660.447, 
    668.2169, 678.5769, 696.447800000002, 714.8367, 744.880600000001, 
    764.0465, 766.6365, 779.5864, 784.7664, 810.6663, 815.8463, 839.1561, 
    852.1061, 872.826, 896.1359, 903.9059, 916.8558, 937.5757, 966.0656, 
    984.1955), q01 = c(0.07287449, 0.0573897264, 0.0557969357, 0.0537193707, 
    0.0518303892, 0.0518080158, 0.0514479006, 0.0517025388, 0.0516258276, 
    0.0459982978, 0.0471084591, 0.0402322638, 0.0406957203, 0.0373694866919881, 
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    0.0368506252, 0.0362731762, 0.0367099924, 0.0329852952, 0.0280992996, 
    0.0278553199, 0.0277327966, 0.0279245722, 0.0279458806, 0.0277967218, 
    0.0279831703, 0.0237609194, 0.0207585756691242, 0.0207543139705945, 
    0.0196036650330279, 0.0188940975085873, 0.0186277436, 0.0167249092, 
    0.0167046666, 0.0166865548, 0.0161687604, 0.0161591718, 0.0161879376, 
    0.011199656, 0.0111985905, 0.01105689088, 0.0110845916, 0.0106222032239633, 
    0.0109610059070531, 0.0109652675220967, 0.0109769869296186, 0.01043682232, 
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    0.00485510337, 0.0048582996, 0.00479330958), q10 = c(0.492542083954826, 
    0.45454932, 0.43124864, 0.41944381, 0.37937352, 0.38026848, 0.37053055, 
    0.37472832, 0.35278072, 0.34281907, 0.34762414, 0.28118472, 0.28004471, 
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    0.099925431, 0.0973364588484978, 0.0949499261725975, 0.0949499261725975, 
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    0.0628169628570211, 0.061410608, 0.0606541642970382, 0.0605369686562966, 
    0.06094183, 0.0605476229844449, 0.0566162367773279, 0.056371194, 
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    0.04757085, 0.04687833, 0.045727678, 0.045503944, 0.04687833, 
    0.046729174, 0.051971022, 0.050308975, 0.0498615, 0.048039636
    ), q25 = c(0.6404219, 0.6244939, 0.605822475, 0.602040281120818, 
    0.5927978, 0.588349675, 0.579639875, 0.5777754, 0.5689325, 0.55953015, 
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    0.2258683, 0.2306094, 0.22400385, 0.2216066, 0.21785105, 0.214521628563819, 
    0.2121244, 0.210153425, 0.2043469, 0.2011506, 0.2003516, 0.207196875, 
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    0.1667377, 0.16812275, 0.16993395, 0.1648199, 0.16276905, 0.15768165, 
    0.15347325, 0.150916225, 0.14910505, 0.14990415, 0.1474537, 0.1441509, 
    0.142712575, 0.138690575, 0.14098125, 0.135813975, 0.137385475, 
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    0.128356075, 0.129900875, 0.1293416, 0.14106115, 0.137598575, 
    0.1421266, 0.1387705), q50 = c(0.7691242, 0.7631579, 0.75559345, 
    0.751917760334541, 0.7506925, 0.746484148060942, 0.7420094, 0.7371617, 
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    0.285371829778393, 0.2846793, 0.2958662, 0.29607925, 0.3035372, 
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    0.861581055999999, 0.861485167999999, 0.858912205, 0.86234816, 
    0.860478344)), .Names = c("xvars", "q01", "q10", "q25", "q50", 
    "q75", "q90", "q99"), row.names = c(NA, -100L), class = "data.frame")

Your code is not [DRY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself); you should reshape your data to long form, and map size and alpha to an aesthetic. — alistaire, Jan 19 '17 at 21:55
@alistaire Can you show me how to do it, please? It does the job, but I would like to know how to do it efficiently. — maximusdooku, Jan 19 '17 at 22:01
@maximusdooku lukeA's answer shows how to do it. See how it has *one* `geom_line` call instead of 7. — Gregor Thomas, Jan 19 '17 at 22:02
@Gregor I am not "melting" into the long form because I need the lines to be of different sizes. Also, the geom_ribbons come with different alpha values. Can I reshape the data and still do these things? lukeA's answer solves my labels issue but introduces new problem of same line sizes and no ribbon colours. — maximusdooku, Jan 19 '17 at 22:06
Yes, you can. If you have trouble, ask a new question, but read some similar questions first. [Heroka's answer here looks good](http://stackoverflow.com/q/32267709/903061), [this is another good one](http://stackoverflow.com/a/37329255/903061). — Gregor Thomas, Jan 19 '17 at 22:15

lukeA · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-19T22:25:40.387

8

You should try the directlabels package. Here's an example:

library(tidyverse)
library(directlabels)
df.quants %>% 
  gather(var,val,-1) %>% 
  ggplot(aes(xvars,val,fill=var)) + 
  geom_area(position="identity", alpha = .5) +
  geom_line() + 
  scale_fill_grey(guide="none") + 
  geom_dl(aes(label=var), method="last.points")

Make sure to browse through its documentation as there are many more options.

You can extend that approach to also use custom labels, linewidths, fillings etc. One way could be:

labs <- setNames(c("G", "F", "E", "D", "C", "B", "A"), c("q99", "q90", "q75", "q50", "q25", "q10", "q01"))
df.quants %>% 
  rev %>%
  gather(var,val,-xvars,factor_key=TRUE) %>% 
  ggplot(aes(xvars,val,fill=var)) + 
  geom_area(position="identity") +
  geom_line(aes(size=var)) + 
  scale_fill_manual(values = c(grey.colors(3,.9,.3), grey.colors(4)), guide="none") + 
  scale_size_manual(values = c(1:3,4:1), guide="none") + 
  geom_dl(aes(label=labs[var]), method="last.points")

edited Jan 19 '17 at 22:25

answered Jan 19 '17 at 22:00

lukeA

53,097
5
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100

Thanks. This helps. But, I don't want the column names to be the labels. Instead I want to add verbose labels such as "Quantile 1, Quantile 2" etc. How can I modify the gather line? I can always rename the column names I guess, but that is cumbersome and changes a lot of my ggplot code. Also the ggplot I have provided has different levels of alpha and line sizes. – maximusdooku Jan 19 '17 at 22:12
Thanks a lot! That works. Just one last question: The labels overflow if the names are long (e.g. Quantile 1) and doesn't resize the plot automatically (Say: https://i.stack.imgur.com/GzwAT.png). It works fine for A,B,C, D ofcourse. How can I stop that from happening? – maximusdooku Jan 19 '17 at 22:59
In case of long names, you could expand the x limits. E.g. `+ scale_x_continuous(breaks = seq(0,1000,250), limits = c(0,1200))` – lukeA Jan 20 '17 at 07:41
I fixed it using extend. Thank you. – maximusdooku Jan 20 '17 at 21:17

How can I add labels on the geom line?

1 Answers1