Change plot axes' titles in R

Question

The axes of the R plot() function have by default the titles:

xlab = "Model Quanntiles"
ylab = "Empirical Quantiles"

I need to replace the texts with their translations for Brazilian Portuguese.

How can I do this?

My code just prints a QQ plot of a fevd (fitted extreme values distribution) object.

plot(fD31,type = "qq", main = "MLE", cex.main = 2)

I have tried to simply replace the xlab and ylab values but it did not work.

plot(fD31,type = "qq", main = "MLE", cex.main = 2, xlab = "Quantis do Modelo",
ylab = "Quantis Empíricos")

EDIT

My complete code:

D31 <- read.csv("file.csv") 
# Variable CYCLES, containing 10.000 different values from 27945900 to 28875760
flmD31 <- fevd(D31$CYCLES, method = "Lmoments")
plot(flmD31,type = "qq", main = "LM", cex.main=2)

The dput()

27947751L,...., 27947844L), method = "Lmoments", type = "GEV", period.basis = "year", 
    par.models = list(threshold = ~1, location = ~1, scale = ~1, 
        log.scale = FALSE, shape = ~1, term.names = list(threshold = character(0), 
            location = character(0), scale = character(0), shape = character(0))), 
    const.loc = TRUE, const.scale = TRUE, const.shape = TRUE, 
    n = 10000L, na.action = "na.fail", results = c(location = 27947289.4961838, 
    scale = 317.480635124479, shape = 0.740827367059249)), class = "fevd")

Could you share the output of `dput(fD31)` so that we can recreate the issue? Also, does Br-Pt mean Brazilian Portuguese? Its better to type it out as many readers may not know this — jpsmith, Mar 15 '23 at 18:19
`plot` is a generic function. It behaves differently based on what packages you have loaded and the class of object you pass to it. It's easier to help you if you include a simple [reproducible example](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5963269/how-to-make-a-great-r-reproducible-example) with sample input that can be used to test and verify possible solutions. — MrFlick, Mar 15 '23 at 18:21
To add the data use [edit](https://stackoverflow.com/posts/75748606/edit) — zx8754, Mar 15 '23 at 18:47
The plot method for `fevd` objects does not have an `xlab` argument, so you probably need to change the variable name in the `fevd` object itself, either when you create it or afterwards. https://search.r-project.org/CRAN/refmans/extRemes/html/fevd.html — Jon Spring, Mar 15 '23 at 18:53
Thanks everybody! I have editted the post with more details. — penelope, Mar 15 '23 at 19:03
It's good practice to include `library(extRemes)` in your code if that is the package your `fevd` function comes from. — Jon Spring, Mar 15 '23 at 19:16
you can always do `plot(fD31, ann = FALSE)` then use `title(xlab = '', ylab = '', main = '')` — rawr, Mar 15 '23 at 19:20

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 15 '23 at 19:53

If you want to properly fix this issue, you may need to define your own version of plot.fevd (and maybe quantquant.plot.evd and a few other internal functions) which seem to manually define the axis titles - meaning you can't override them in the normal way.

If you want a hacky solution, you could change the text colour of the current axis titles to white, and then add your own axis labels on top of them.

flmD31 <- fevd(mtcars$cyl, method = "Lmoments")
plot(flmD31,type = "qq",
     main = "LM",
     cex.main=2,
     col.lab = 'white')
title(xlab = "Quantis do Modelo",
      ylab = "Quantis Empíricos")

gives:

Note that this isn't a great solution, as the original axis titles are still there, and if you output to PDF format, will still be picked up by e.g. screenreaders so use with caution.

Change plot axes' titles in R

1 Answers1