How to Avoid Overlapping Labels in ggplot2 in R?

In this article, we are going to see how to avoid overlapping labels in ggplot2 in R Programming Language.

To avoid overlapping labels in ggplot2, we use guide_axis() within scale_x_discrete().

Syntax: plot+scale_x_discrete(guide = guide_axis(<type>))

In the place of we can use the following properties:

• n.dodge: It makes overlapping labels shift a step-down.
• check.overlap: This removes the overlapping labels and displays only those which do not overlap

Creating the basic barplot with overlapping labels

R

# Create sample data
set.seed(5642)
sample_data <- data.frame(name = c("Geeksforgeeks1",
                                   "Geeksforgeeks2",
                                   "Geeksforgeeks3",
                                   "Geeksforgeeks4",
                                   "Geeeksforgeeks5") ,
                          value = c(31,12,15,28,45))
# Load ggplot2 package
library("ggplot2")

# Create bar plot
plot<-ggplot(sample_data, aes(name,value, fill=name)) +
geom_bar(stat = "identity")
plot

Output:

Avoid overlapping labels

To avoid overlapping by shifting labels downward we use n.dodge parameter of guide_axis() function:

R

# Create sample data
set.seed(5642)
sample_data <- data.frame(name = c("Geeksforgeeks1",
                                   "Geeksforgeeks2",
                                   "Geeksforgeeks3",
                                   "Geeksforgeeks4",
                                   "Geeeksforgeeks5") ,
                          value = c(31,12,15,28,45))
# Load ggplot2 package
library("ggplot2")

# Create bar plot without overlapping labels
plot<-ggplot(sample_data, aes(name,value, fill=name)) +
geom_bar(stat = "identity") +
scale_x_discrete(guide = guide_axis(n.dodge=2))
plot

Output:

Remove overlapping

To remove overlapping labels we use check.overlap parameter of guide_axis() function:

R

# Create sample data
set.seed(5642)
sample_data <- data.frame(name = c("Geeksforgeeks1",
                                   "Geeksforgeeks2",
                                   "Geeksforgeeks3",
                                   "Geeksforgeeks4",
                                   "Geeeksforgeeks5") ,
                          value = c(31,12,15,28,45))
# Load ggplot2 package
library("ggplot2")

# Create bar plot without overlapping labels
plot<-ggplot(sample_data, aes(name,value, fill=name)) +
geom_bar(stat = "identity") +
scale_x_discrete(guide = guide_axis(check.overlap = TRUE))
plot

Output: