sizing graphs
considerations
- virtual ‘size’ of figure
- size of figure in text
- aspect ratio (height/width)
ways to output figures
- “Save” button in RStudio
pdf(); ...; dev.off()(or the same forpng(), etc.)ggsave()[automatically saves most recent ggplot, but can specify agg*object]
virtual/‘physical’ size
- dimension arguments
width,heightinpdf(),png(), etc. (different units!)- but always inches in pdf, which is generally the best choice
width,heightinggsave(always inches for any format)- can also control text, etc. sizes with e.g.
cex(base R) ortheme_*(base_size = ...)(ggplot2) - chunk options:
fig.width,fig.height(Rmarkdown),fig-width,fig-height(quarto) (can set these to a default spec in a document, in YAML header or viaknitr::opts_chunk()) - decreasing the physical size of a figure increases the relative size of text, lines, etc.
- your axis labels are probably too small
output size
- size on the page
out.height/out.width(Rmarkdown),out-height/out-width(Quarto): output-format dependent
Height of the plot in the output document, which can be different from its physical fig-height, i.e., plots can be scaled in the output document. Depending on the output format, this option can take special values. For example, for LaTeX [PDF] output, it can be 3in, or 8cm; for HTML, it can be 300px [OR “50%”]
- Generally better to scale both dimensions the same; this will likely just work if you specify only width or height, but you should check