Multiple plots side by side - How to make all plots the same widths?

Question

I am just arranging three ggplots so that they appear side by side in the saved png. Thereby I followed the helpful clue of this answer. For better clearness I display only the legend of the rightmost plot. Logically now there has to be specified a greater width to the rightmost plot because of the legend. With scales::arrangeGrob() we can achieve this, e.g. c(600, 600, 750).

library(ggplot2)
economics$long <- with(economics, ifelse(uempmed > 8.61, 1, 0))
p <- ggplot(economics[economics$date < "1979-01-01", ], 
            aes(date, unemploy, color = long)) + 
  geom_line() + theme(legend.position="none")
q <- ggplot(economics[economics$date < "1991-01-01", ], 
            aes(date, unemploy, color = long)) + 
  geom_line() + theme(legend.position="none")
r <- ggplot(economics[economics$date < "2003-01-01", ], 
            aes(date, unemploy, color = long)) +
  geom_line()

l <- list(p, q, r)

library(gridExtra)
ggsave("test.png", 
       arrangeGrob(grobs = l, nrow = 1, ncol = 3, 
                   widths = c(600, 600, 750), heights = NULL, 
                   padding = unit(0.5, "line")),
       width = 18, height = 9, units = "cm", dpi = 600,
       scale = 1.5)

I'm sure by trial and error I could adjust the rightmost plot till it fits. The actual problem is, that the widths of the middle and the leftmost plot do not match despite of the same values of 600, which is really annoying:

Does anybody know how to make all plots the same widths?

I think if you have the same x-axis range, it should solve the problem `+ xlim(range(economics$date))` . — kangaroo_cliff, Jan 25 '18 at 08:08
If you don't what to change scales you can use `ggarrange` from `egg`: `egg::ggarrange(p, q, r, nrow = 1)` — pogibas, Jan 25 '18 at 08:09
@PoGibas Looks great, but how would you consider to put this through `ggsave()`? `ggarrange(); ggsave()` is not working. — jay.sf, Jan 25 '18 at 08:37
Please test this: `figure <- egg::ggarrange(p, q, r, nrow = 1); ggsave("~/myStocks.pdf", figure, width = 22, height = 9, units = "cm", dpi = 600)` — pogibas, Jan 25 '18 at 08:41
`library(patchwork); p + q + r`. Install from [github](https://github.com/thomasp85/patchwork). — Axeman, Jan 25 '18 at 08:42
@PoGibas Works like a charm, thanks! Perhaps you consider to write this as an answer? — jay.sf, Jan 25 '18 at 08:51

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 25 '18 at 08:56

One possible solution is to use package egg by @baptise.

# Using OPs data/plots
# Add aligned plots into a single object 
figure <- egg::ggarrange(p, q, r, nrow = 1)
# Save into a pdf
ggsave("~/myStocks.pdf", figure, width = 22, height = 9, units = "cm", dpi = 600)

Aligned result looks like this:

Multiple plots side by side - How to make all plots the same widths?

1 Answers1