Save a ggplot

This is a wrapper for ggsave() that attempts to make a reasonable guess at the plot size, particularly if they have been set in the theme(panel.widths, panel.heights) settings or when the force_panelsizes() function has been used.

Usage

save_plot(
  ...,
  plot = get_last_plot(),
  width = NULL,
  height = NULL,
  units = c("in", "cm", "mm", "px"),
  dpi = 300
)

Arguments

...

Arguments passed on to ggplot2::ggsave

filename

File name to create on disk.

device

Device to use. Can either be a device function (e.g. png), or one of "eps", "ps", "tex" (pictex), "pdf", "jpeg", "tiff", "png", "bmp", "svg" or "wmf" (windows only). If NULL (default), the device is guessed based on the filename extension.

path

Path of the directory to save plot to: path and filename are combined to create the fully qualified file name. Defaults to the working directory.

scale

Multiplicative scaling factor.

limitsize

When TRUE (the default), ggsave() will not save images larger than 50x50 inches, to prevent the common error of specifying dimensions in pixels.

bg

Background colour. If NULL, uses the plot.background fill value from the plot theme.

create.dir

Whether to create new directories if a non-existing directory is specified in the filename or path (TRUE) or return an error (FALSE, default). If FALSE and run in an interactive session, a prompt will appear asking to create a new directory when necessary.

plot

Plot to save, defaults to last plot displayed.

width, height

Plot size in units expressed by the units argument. If NULL (default), the plot size will be measured. When the plot does not have a fixed size, these become NA, meaning that the size of the current graphics device is used.

units

One of the following units in which the width and height arguments are expressed: "in", "cm", "mm" or "px".

dpi

Plot resolution. Also accepts a string input: "retina" (320), "print" (300), or "screen" (72). Only applies when converting pixel units, as is typical for raster output types.

Value

The file name with width and height attributes in inches, invisibly.

Examples

# A plot with fixed dimensions
p <- ggplot(mpg, aes(displ, hwy)) +
  geom_point() +
  theme(
    panel.widths = unit(10, "cm"),
    panel.heights = unit(2, "cm")
  )

# Save plot to a temporary file
tmp <- tempfile(fileext = ".png")
save_plot(tmp, plot = p)
#> [1] "/tmp/RtmpMyC8ZT/file1e3d1812df7e.png"
#> attr(,"width")
#> [1] 4.490031
#> attr(,"height")
#> [1] 1.296193

# Clean up temporary file
unlink(tmp)