R multiple plots with common y-axis scaling and shared x-axis label

Question

this is my first question here. Please be nice to a (R-) newbie :)

I'm trying to arrange multiple plots from different data frames, so that they share a common y-axis and the x-axis label/numbers are only displayed under the bottom plot.

My data frames consist of the following columns: measurement time (messzeitpunkt_s), mean (z_mean), upper limit of the confidence interval (z_ci_up), lower limit of the confidence interval (z_ci_low).

This is what I've tried:

I created the plots I want to stack over another:

`

p_neutral <- ggplot(neutral_all_mean_ci, aes(messzeitpunkt_s, z_mean, colour = " Mittelwert ")) +
  theme_bw()+
  geom_ribbon(aes(messzeitpunkt_s, ymax = z_ci_up, ymin = z_ci_low), fill = "#FCE5D7", alpha=0.8) +
  labs(x = "Messzeit [s]",y = "Neutral")+
  geom_line() +
  geom_line(aes(y = z_ci_low, colour =" 95% CI ")) +
  geom_line(aes(y = z_ci_up, colour = " 95% CI ")) +
  theme(legend.position = "none") +
  scale_color_manual(values=c("#F7B383", "#3074B3", "#F7B383"))

`

I've used the same code to create the plots p_anger, p_disgust, p_fear, p_happiness, p_sadness, p_surprise, only by replacing the data frame neutral_all_mean_ci in the ggplot-function with anger_all_mean_ci and so on and changing the respective labels.

When I stack them over another using ggarrage():

ggarrange(p_neutral, p_anger, p_disgust, p_fear, p_happiness, p_sadness, p_surprise, ncol=1)

I end up with this plot.

Now I would like to have a common y-axis scale (so the plots show the same range) and the x-axis label/numbers only at the bottom plot.

Can someone please help me out? Thanks in advance!

John Ferreira John Ferreira · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-20T17:29:02

Welcome to StackOverflow!

I think you can use the scale_y_continuous(limits = c(-0.5, 1.5)) in all plots and labs(x="Messzeit [s]") only in the last geom_line(), like this:

p_neutral <- ggplot(neutral_all_mean_ci, aes(messzeitpunkt_s, z_mean, colour = " Mittelwert ")) +
  theme_bw()+
  geom_ribbon(aes(messzeitpunkt_s, ymax = z_ci_up, ymin = z_ci_low), fill = "#FCE5D7", alpha=0.8) + scale_y_continuous(limits = c(-0.5, 1.5)) +
  labs(x = "",y = "Neutral")+ scale_y_continuous(limits = c(-0.5, 1.5)) +
  geom_line() + labs(x="") +
  geom_line(aes(y = z_ci_low, colour =" 95% CI ")) + scale_y_continuous(limits = c(-0.5, 1.5)) + labs(x="") +
  geom_line(aes(y = z_ci_up, colour = " 95% CI ")) + scale_y_continuous(limits = c(-0.5, 1.5)) + labs(x="Messzeit [s]") +
  theme(legend.position = "none") + 
  scale_color_manual(values=c("#F7B383", "#3074B3", "#F7B383"))

Let me know if this could help you because I couldn't run it without your dataset.

R multiple plots with common y-axis scaling and shared x-axis label

1 Answers