element_text_repel: Repulsive text element

In ggrepel: Automatically Position Non-Overlapping Text Labels with 'ggplot2'

Repulsive text element

Description

This text element is a replacement for element_text that repulses labels.

Usage

element_text_repel(
  family = NULL,
  face = NULL,
  colour = NULL,
  size = NULL,
  hjust = NULL,
  vjust = NULL,
  angle = NULL,
  lineheight = NULL,
  color = NULL,
  margin = NULL,
  box.padding = NULL,
  force = NULL,
  force_pull = NULL,
  max.time = NULL,
  max.iter = NULL,
  max.overlaps = NULL,
  min.segment.length = NULL,
  segment.colour = NULL,
  segment.linetype = NULL,
  segment.size = NULL,
  segment.curvature = NULL,
  segment.angle = NULL,
  segment.ncp = NULL,
  segment.shape = NULL,
  segment.square = NULL,
  segment.squareShape = NULL,
  segment.inflect = NULL,
  arrow = NULL,
  seed = NA,
  position = c("bottom", "top", "left", "right"),
  inherit.blank = FALSE
)

Arguments

family	The typeface to use. The validity of this value will depend on the graphics device being used for rendering the plot. See the systemfonts vignette for guidance on the best way to access fonts installed on your computer. The values "sans", "serif", and "mono" should always be valid and will select the default typeface for the respective styles. However, what is considered default is dependant on the graphics device and the operating system.
face	Font face ("plain", "italic", "bold", "bold.italic")
colour, color	Line/border colour. Color is an alias for colour. alpha() can be used to set the transparency of the colour.
size	Font size in points.
hjust	Horizontal justification (in [0, 1])
vjust	Vertical justification (in [0, 1])
angle	Angle (in [0, 360])
lineheight	Line height
margin	Margins around the text. See margin() for more details. When creating a theme, the margins should be placed on the side of the text facing towards the center of the plot.
box.padding	Amount of padding around bounding box, as unit or number. Defaults to 0.25. (Default unit is lines, but other units can be specified by passing unit(x, "units")).
force	Force of repulsion between overlapping text labels. Defaults to 1.
force_pull	Force of attraction between a text label and its corresponding data point. Defaults to 1.
max.time	Maximum number of seconds to try to resolve overlaps. Defaults to 0.5.
max.iter	Maximum number of iterations to try to resolve overlaps. Defaults to 10000.
max.overlaps	Exclude text labels when they overlap too many other things. For each text label, we count how many other text labels or other data points it overlaps, and exclude the text label if it has too many overlaps. Defaults to 10.
min.segment.length	Skip drawing segments shorter than this, as unit or number. Defaults to 0.5. (Default unit is lines, but other units can be specified by passing unit(x, "units")).
segment.colour, segment.linetype, segment.size	Graphical parameters for the line connecting the text to points of origin.
segment.curvature, segment.angle, segment.ncp, segment.shape, segment.square, segment.squareShape, segment.inflect	Settings for curving the connecting line. See curveGrob for descriptions of these parameters.
arrow	Arrow specification, as created by grid::arrow()
seed	Random seed passed to set.seed. Defaults to NA, which means that set.seed will not be called.
position	One of "top", "right", "bottom", "left" setting where the text labels should be relative to points of origin.
inherit.blank	Should this element inherit the existence of an element_blank among its parents? If TRUE the existence of a blank element among its parents will cause this element to be blank as well. If FALSE any blank parent element will be ignored when calculating final element state.

Value

An object of class <element_text_repel>.

Examples

# A plot with a crowded y-axis
p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, rownames(mtcars))) +
  geom_col() +
  coord_cartesian(ylim = c(-32, 64)) +
  theme(axis.text.y = element_text_repel())

# By default there isn't enough space to draw distinctive lines
p

# The available space can be increased by setting the margin
p + theme(axis.text.y.left = element_text_repel(margin = margin(r = 20)))

# For secondary axis positions at the top and right, the `position` argument
# should be set accordingly
p + scale_y_discrete(position = "right") +
  theme(axis.text.y.right = element_text_repel(
    margin = margin(l = 20),
    position = "right"
  ))

# Using segment settings and matching tick colour
p + theme(
  axis.text.y.left = element_text_repel(
    margin = margin(r = 20),
    segment.curvature = -0.1,
    segment.inflect = TRUE,
    segment.colour = "red"
  ),
  axis.ticks.y.left = element_line(colour = "red")
)

ggrepel documentation built on Feb. 25, 2026, 9:06 a.m.