Quick start

The patchwork package in R is an extension of the ggplot2 package, designed to simplify the process of combining multiple plots into a single layout.

Installation

To get started with patchwork, you can install it directly from CRAN using the install.packages function:

install.packages("patchwork")

Basic usage

The patchwork package allows you to combine multiple plots using simple arithmetic operators like +, /, and |.

Here’s a basic example:

p1 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_point(aes(mpg, disp))
p2 <- ggplot(mtcars) + geom_boxplot(aes(gear, disp, group = gear))
p1 + p2

Key features

p1 + p2 + p1

p1 / p2

(p1 + p2) / p1

p1 + p2 + plot_annotation(title = 'My Combined Plot')

Gallery of patchwork examples

Dumbbell plot with gap section

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An extended dumbbell plot originally published by the Pew research center. Clean design with a gap section on the right hand side.

Dual Y axis

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A few examples showing how to use the sec.axis argument to add a second Y axis.

Circular lollipop chart

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A circular lollipop chart with customized layout, in circle legend and groups.

A work by Cédric Scherer for the TidyTuesday challenge.

Line and Area charts by The Economist

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Learn how to mimick the style of The Economist with libraries like ggplot2, patchwork, grid, ggtext and more.