Table of Contents
In order to change the font size of Base R plots, you can use the ‘cex’ argument in the plot function. This argument allows you to specify a numerical value which then scales the current font size by the specified amount. Additionally, you can also use the ‘font’ argument to set a specific font family, size, and style to the plot.
You can use the following syntax to change the font size of various elements in base R plots:
plot(df$x, df$y, main='Title', sub='Subtitle', cex.main=2, #change font size of title cex.sub=2, #change font size of subtitle cex.lab=2, #change font size of axis labels cex.axis=2) #change font size of axis text
The following examples show how to use this syntax with the following scatterplot in base R:
#create data frame df <- data.frame(x=c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), y=c(5, 8, 12, 16, 25, 33)) #create scatterplot with all default font sizes plot(df$x, df$y, main='Title', sub='Subtitle')
Example 1: Change Font Size of Title
The following code shows how to change the font size of the title of the plot:
#create scatterplot with increased font size of title plot(df$x, df$y, main='Title', sub='Subtitle'. cex.main=2)
Example 2: Change Font Size of Subtitle
The following code shows how to change the font size of the subtitle of the plot:
#create scatterplot with increased font size of subtitle plot(df$x, df$y, main='Title', sub='Subtitle'. cex.sub=2)
Example 3: Change Font Size of Axis Labels
The following code shows how to change the font size of the axis labels of the plot:
#create scatterplot with increased font size of axis labels plot(df$x, df$y, main='Title', sub='Subtitle'. cex.lab=2)
Example 4: Change Font Size of Axis Text
The following code shows how to change the font size of the axis text of the plot:
#create scatterplot with increased font size of axis text plot(df$x, df$y, main='Title', sub='Subtitle'. cex.axis=2)
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common plotting operations in R: