ggplot plots within a table

Question

Problem

I would like to produce a good looking table which has ggplots within the cells of one column. One key element is that I would like to create a pdf output of this table eventually.

What I have tried so far

Hopefully the example below is understandable. Essentially I found that I can achieve what I want using the gt package. The problem is this creates a html widget which you then have to use phantomJS and webshot to export as a pdf.

library(dplyr)
library(purrr)
library(gt)
library(ggplot2)


dat = tibble(
  RowLabel = letters[1:5],
  Numeric = seq(100,500,100)
) %>% 
  mutate(
    plotData = RowLabel %>% map(function(pos){
      tibble(y=runif(10)*100) %>% 
        arrange(desc(y)) %>% 
        mutate(x=row_number())
    }),
    plot_obj = plotData %>% map(function(df){
      df %>%
        ggplot(aes(x=x,y=y))+
        geom_col()
    }),
    plot_grob = plot_obj %>% map(cowplot::as_grob)
  )


tab = dat %>% 
  select(RowLabel, Numeric) %>% 
  mutate(
    ggplot = NA
  ) %>% 
  gt() %>% 
  text_transform(
    locations = cells_body(vars(ggplot)),
    fn = function(x) {
      dat$plot_obj %>%
        map(ggplot_image, height = px(50))
    }
  )
tab

What do I want

I would like an output which is similar to the above example. However, I would like a solution which does not require me to use html widgets and can be saved directly as a pdf without the use of other programs. Is this possible to do using ggplot? I have started to learn more about grids/grobs/gtables etc but have not made any meaningful progress.

Thanks in advance!

Reading through the PR for gt() I can't see any implementations that would support anything outside of html. github.com/rstudio/gt/pull/155/commits and github.com/rstudio/gt/issues/152 It may be possible but it seems unlikely to be anything simple. Perhaps another tabe package has this feature. — Joel Kandiah
– Joel Kandiah, Commented Apr 5, 2021 at 22:20

jared_mamrot · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-08 06:07:22Z

2

Perhaps you could tweak the gtsave() function to suit? E.g.

library(dplyr)
library(purrr)
library(gt)
library(ggplot2)


dat = tibble(
  RowLabel = letters[1:5],
  Numeric = seq(100,500,100)
) %>% 
  mutate(
    plotData = RowLabel %>% map(function(pos){
      tibble(y=runif(10)*100) %>% 
        arrange(desc(y)) %>% 
        mutate(x=row_number())
    }),
    plot_obj = plotData %>% map(function(df){
      df %>%
        ggplot(aes(x=x,y=y))+
        geom_col()
    }),
    plot_grob = plot_obj %>% map(cowplot::as_grob)
  )
tab = dat %>% 
  select(RowLabel, Numeric) %>% 
  mutate(
    ggplot = NA
  ) %>% 
  gt() %>% 
  text_transform(
    locations = cells_body(vars(ggplot)),
    fn = function(x) {
      dat$plot_obj %>%
        map(ggplot_image, height = px(50))
    }
  )
tab %>% 
  gt::gtsave(filename = "test.pdf", vwidth = 180, vheight = 250)

(R v4.0.3 / gt v0.2.2)

edited Apr 8, 2021 at 6:07

answered Apr 5, 2021 at 23:37

jared_mamrot

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1 Comment

tc297 Over a year ago

Thank you for the response. This solution appears to be basically what I already tried. The gtsave function uses webshot which in turn uses phantomJS. But given the comment from Joel Kandiah, it appears that this solution might be the only way to proceed without significant complexity. Additionally, I think you didnt copy paste the whole code snippet from the question (not sure if you can edit).

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