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Place Legend on the Right with Proper Alignment

Source: R/legend_position.R
legend_right.Rd

A one-liner to position the legend on the right side of the plot with correct right alignment for both the key box and text labels.

Usage

legend_right(by = NULL)

Arguments

by

Optional aesthetic name (character) to position only a specific legend. When specified, uses per-guide positioning via guide_legend(position = "right"). Requires ggplot2 >= 3.5.0. Common values: "colour", "fill", "size".

Value

A ggplot2 theme object (when by is NULL) or a guides specification (when by is specified).

Details

When by is NULL (default), this function sets three theme elements:

  • legend.position = "right" to place the legend on the right

  • legend.justification = "right" to right-justify the legend box

  • legend.box.just = "right" to right-align multiple legend boxes

When by is specified, only the legend for that aesthetic is moved, allowing different legends to be placed in different positions.

See also

legend_left, legend_top, legend_bottom, legend_inside

Examples

library(ggplot2)

# Basic usage
ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, wt, color = factor(cyl))) +
  geom_point() +
  legend_right()

# Position only the size legend on the right
ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, wt, color = factor(cyl), size = hp)) +
  geom_point() +
  legend_bottom(by = "colour") +
  legend_right(by = "size")