Table of Contents
When an error is encountered in plot.new(), it usually means that the margins of the figure are too large. To fix this issue, the margins need to be adjusted by setting the xaxs and yaxs parameters to “i” for inner margins or “o” for outer margins. This can be done by using the par() function to set the values of the parameters. Once the margins have been adjusted, the plot.new() command should run without any errors.
One error you may encounter in R is:
Error in plot.new() : figure margins too large
This error occurs when the plot panel in RStudio is too small for the margins of the plot that you’re attempting to create.
This tutorial shares exactly how to fix this error.
How to Reproduce the Error
Suppose we attempt to create the following plot in R:
#attempt to create scatterplot
plot(1:30)
We receive the following error:
Error in plot.new() : figure margins too large
We receive this error because the plot panel is extremely small (notice how small the panel is in the bottom left corner) and so the margins of the plot can’t be displayed in such a small panel.
Method #1: Fix the Error by Increasing the Size of the Plot Panel
The easiest way to fix this error is to increase the size of the plotting panel in RStudio:
plot(1:30)
Notice that we don’t receive an error because the plotting panel was large enough to display the margins of the plot.
Method #2: Fix the Error by Using the par() Function
- Bottom margin: 5.1
- Left margin: 4.1
- Top margin: 4.1
- Right margin: 2.1
However, we can use the following syntax to make the margins smaller:
#adjust plot margins
par(mar = c(1, 1, 1, 1))
#create scatterplot
plot(1:30)
The plot is successfully displayed in the plotting panel in RStudio because we reduced the margins so much.
Method #3: Fix the Error by Shutting Down Current Plotting Device
If neither of the previous methods are able to fix the error, then you may need to use the following code to shut down the current plotting device:
dev.off()
In some cases, this may fix the error because it removes any plot settings that were used for previous plots and may be interfering with your current plot.
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common plotting functions in R: