Remove Some of the Axis Labels in Ggplot Faceted Plots

Remove some of the axis labels in ggplot faceted plots

If you're willing to work at the grid/grob-level, it's definitely doable.

First, we assign a ggplot object with your faceted plot

my_plot <- d + facet_wrap(~ color, nrow = 1)

Then, we load up gtable so we can use/manipulate the lower-level objects.

library(gtable)

## Loading required package: grid

Now, we extract the ggplot object into a TableGrob (apologies for the long-ish output, but I think it helps show the underlying structure of the facet plots):

plot_tab <- ggplotGrob(my_plot)
print(plot_tab)

## TableGrob (8 x 25) "layout": 33 grobs
##     z         cells       name                                    grob
## 1   0 ( 1- 8, 1-25) background          rect[plot.background.rect.263]
## 2   1 ( 4- 4, 4- 4)    panel-1                 gTree[panel-1.gTree.53]
## 3   2 ( 4- 4, 7- 7)    panel-2                 gTree[panel-2.gTree.68]
## 4   3 ( 4- 4,10-10)    panel-3                 gTree[panel-3.gTree.83]
## 5   4 ( 4- 4,13-13)    panel-4                 gTree[panel-4.gTree.98]
## 6   5 ( 4- 4,16-16)    panel-5                gTree[panel-5.gTree.113]
## 7   6 ( 4- 4,19-19)    panel-6                gTree[panel-6.gTree.128]
## 8   7 ( 4- 4,22-22)    panel-7                gTree[panel-7.gTree.143]
## 9   8 ( 3- 3, 4- 4)  strip_t-1    absoluteGrob[strip.absoluteGrob.211]
## 10  9 ( 3- 3, 7- 7)  strip_t-2    absoluteGrob[strip.absoluteGrob.217]
## 11 10 ( 3- 3,10-10)  strip_t-3    absoluteGrob[strip.absoluteGrob.223]
## 12 11 ( 3- 3,13-13)  strip_t-4    absoluteGrob[strip.absoluteGrob.229]
## 13 12 ( 3- 3,16-16)  strip_t-5    absoluteGrob[strip.absoluteGrob.235]
## 14 13 ( 3- 3,19-19)  strip_t-6    absoluteGrob[strip.absoluteGrob.241]
## 15 14 ( 3- 3,22-22)  strip_t-7    absoluteGrob[strip.absoluteGrob.247]
## 16 15 ( 4- 4, 3- 3)   axis_l-1 absoluteGrob[axis-l-1.absoluteGrob.199]
## 17 16 ( 4- 4, 6- 6)   axis_l-2         zeroGrob[axis-l-2.zeroGrob.200]
## 18 17 ( 4- 4, 9- 9)   axis_l-3         zeroGrob[axis-l-3.zeroGrob.201]
## 19 18 ( 4- 4,12-12)   axis_l-4         zeroGrob[axis-l-4.zeroGrob.202]
## 20 19 ( 4- 4,15-15)   axis_l-5         zeroGrob[axis-l-5.zeroGrob.203]
## 21 20 ( 4- 4,18-18)   axis_l-6         zeroGrob[axis-l-6.zeroGrob.204]
## 22 21 ( 4- 4,21-21)   axis_l-7         zeroGrob[axis-l-7.zeroGrob.205]
## 23 22 ( 5- 5, 4- 4)   axis_b-1 absoluteGrob[axis-b-1.absoluteGrob.150]
## 24 23 ( 5- 5, 7- 7)   axis_b-2 absoluteGrob[axis-b-2.absoluteGrob.157]
## 25 24 ( 5- 5,10-10)   axis_b-3 absoluteGrob[axis-b-3.absoluteGrob.164]
## 26 25 ( 5- 5,13-13)   axis_b-4 absoluteGrob[axis-b-4.absoluteGrob.171]
## 27 26 ( 5- 5,16-16)   axis_b-5 absoluteGrob[axis-b-5.absoluteGrob.178]
## 28 27 ( 5- 5,19-19)   axis_b-6 absoluteGrob[axis-b-6.absoluteGrob.185]
## 29 28 ( 5- 5,22-22)   axis_b-7 absoluteGrob[axis-b-7.absoluteGrob.192]
## 30 29 ( 7- 7, 4-22)       xlab             text[axis.title.x.text.249]
## 31 30 ( 4- 4, 2- 2)       ylab             text[axis.title.y.text.251]
## 32 31 ( 4- 4,24-24)  guide-box                       gtable[guide-box]
## 33 32 ( 2- 2, 4-22)      title               text[plot.title.text.261]

My negating-look-ahead-regex-fu is not working this morning, so if anyone with a shorter regex for this could edit it or comment that'd be awesome. Basically, we're filtering out the x-axis elements you don't want (print it again locally to see what's gone).

plot_filtered <- gtable_filter(plot_tab, 
                     "(background|panel|strip_t|axis_l|xlab|ylab|guide-box|title|axis_b-[1357])",
                     trim=FALSE)

And, now we do the actual plotting:

grid.newpage()
grid.draw(plot_filtered)

Remove inner labels in ggplot with nested facets and free y-axis (facet_wrap2 - ggh4x)

If you flip the x and y-aesthetic (making coord_flip() unnessary), you can use ggh4x::facetted_pos_scales() to explicitly remove the axis guide for the second column.

library(ggplot2)
library(ggh4x)
library(tibble)
library(dplyr)

set.seed(32123)
test <- tibble(
  trial  = rep(c("Trial_A", "Trial_B", "Trial_C"), each = 3, times = 8),
  group  = rep(c("A", "B"), each = 36),
  result = rep(c("Fail", "Pass"), times = 36),
  item   = rep(c("item 1", "item 2", "item 3", "item 4"), each = 6, times = 3),
  tries  = round(runif(n = 72, min = 0, max = 20))) %>%
  mutate(item = case_when(item == "item 4" & group == "B" & trial == "Trial_C" ~ "item 3",
                          item == "item 3" & group == "B" & trial == "Trial_C" ~ "item 2",
                          item == "item 3" & group == "B" & trial == "Trial_A" ~ "item 2",
                          item == "item 2" & group == "B" & trial == "Trial_A" ~ "item 1",
                          TRUE ~ item))

ggplot(test, aes(x = tries, y = item, fill = result)) +
  geom_bar(position = "fill", stat = "identity") +
  facet_wrap2(dplyr::vars(trial, group),  # ggh4x package for nested facets
              strip = strip_nested(),    # sub facets normal
              scales = "free_y", nrow = 3, axes = "margins",
              remove_labels = "all") +
  facetted_pos_scales(
    y = list(COL == 2 ~ scale_y_discrete(guide = 'none'))
  ) +
  theme(axis.title.x = element_blank())

^{Created on 2022-08-17 by the reprex package (v2.0.1)}

Perhaps the documentation of facet_wrap2() should be clearer on when these arguments work.

How can I center the bar graphs in a facet wrap and remove the x axis labels in the facets?

I think the canonical method is to use scales = "free_x" in the facet, and to explicit remove the x-axis ticks with breaks=NULL.

ggplot(df, aes(x = act, y = ppart, fill = Region)) + 
    geom_bar(position = "dodge", stat = "identity") + 
    facet_wrap(~act, scales = "free_x") +   # changed
  scale_fill_grey(start = 0.8, end = 0.2) +
    ylab("Percent participation in activity") + 
  xlab("") + 
    theme_bw() +
  scale_x_discrete(breaks = NULL)           # new

How to remove only some facet labels?

It's not at all perfect, but I'll post this hoping is still better than nothing.

The use of as_labeller() and labeller() may get you what you need.

Update

Easiest solution was to split Species and var in two labellers functions.

facet_labeller_top <- function(variable, value) {
  c(
    "Setosa", 
    "",
    "",
    "",
    "Versicolor", 
    "",
    "",
    "",
    "Virginica", 
    "",
    "",
    ""
  )
}

facet_labeller_bottom <- function(variable, value) {
  c(
    "Petal.Length", 
    "Petal.Width",
    "Sepal.Length",
    "Sepal.Width",
    "Petal.Length", 
    "Petal.Width",
    "Sepal.Length",
    "Sepal.Width",
    "Petal.Length", 
    "Petal.Width",
    "Sepal.Length",
    "Sepal.Width"
  )
}

Result:

ggplot(dat) +
  geom_point(aes(x = 1, y = val)) +
  facet_wrap(Species~var, labeller = labeller(Species=as_labeller(facet_labeller_top),
                                              var = as_labeller(facet_labeller_bottom)))

Data example:

library(tidyr)
library(ggplot2)

dat <- iris %>%
  gather(var, val, Sepal.Length:Petal.Width) 

Separate y-axis labels by facet OR remove legend but keep the space

I have assumed (possibly wrongly) that you are wanting to add separate y-axis titles rather than axis labels. [If it is the labels you want different you can use the scales argument in facet_grid]

There will be a ggplot way to do this but here are a couple of ways you could tweak the grobs yourself.

So using mtcars dataset as example

library(ggplot2)
library(grid)
library(gridExtra)

One way

p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, wt, col=factor(vs))) +   geom_point() + 
                                 facet_grid(gear ~ .)

# change the y axis labels manually
g <- ggplotGrob(p)
yax <- which(g$layout$name=="ylab")

# define y-axis labels
g[["grobs"]][[yax]]$label <- c("aa","bb", "cc")

# position of labels (ive just manually specified)
g[["grobs"]][[yax]]$y <- grid::unit(seq(0.15, 0.85, length=3),"npc")

grid::grid.draw(g)

Or using grid.arrange

# Create a plot for each level of grouping variable and y-axis label
p1 <- ggplot(mtcars[mtcars$gear==3, ], aes(mpg, wt, col=factor(vs))) + 
                                 geom_point() + labs(y="aa") + theme_bw()
p2 <- ggplot(mtcars[mtcars$gear==4, ], aes(mpg, wt, col=factor(vs))) +  
                                 geom_point() + labs(y="bb") + theme_bw()
p3 <- ggplot(mtcars[mtcars$gear==5, ], aes(mpg, wt, col=factor(vs))) +  
                                 geom_point() + labs(y="cc") + theme_bw()

# remove legends from two of the plots
g1 <- ggplotGrob(p1)
g1[["grobs"]][[which(g1$layout$name=="guide-box")]][["grobs"]] <- NULL

g3 <- ggplotGrob(p3)
g3[["grobs"]][[which(g3$layout$name=="guide-box")]][["grobs"]] <- NULL

gridExtra::grid.arrange(g1,p2,g3)

If it is the axis titles you want to add I should ask why you want a different titles - can the facet strip text not do?

ggplot faceting - remove empty x-axis labels

You need to add the scales argument to facet_wrap(). Try

# Faceting
ggplot(data, aes(y=value, x=specie, color=specie, fill=specie)) + 
  geom_bar( stat="identity") +    
  facet_wrap(~condition, scales = "free")

Remove Only One of Two facet_grid() X Labels

For reasons I also don't understand, the following seems to work. The function just returns a vector of empty strings of equal length as the input.

library(ggplot2)

ggplot(mtcars, aes(x=cyl,y=mpg)) +
  geom_point() +
  facet_grid(am ~ gear + carb, 
             labeller = labeller(carb = function(x) {rep("", length(x))}))

^{Created on 2021-01-12 by the reprex package (v0.3.0)}

remove facet.by label from sublot title in violinboxplot

You should get the desired result by using:

short.panel.labs = TRUE

This is also the default behaviour of facet, so you can completely remove short.panel.labs.
And it doesn't matter whether you use TRUE/FALSE or T/F, but if I remember correctly, the full notation is recommended for clarity.

Reducing the area between axis labels and axis in facet_wrap

scale_y_continuous(expand = expand_scale(mult = c(0, 0.05))) +

should make there be no space between the baseline and the data, with the same padding on the top as by default.

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