Prevent secondary plotly axis to dropping from graph area

Question

I am trying to create a plotly graph with two y-axes, one on the left-hand side and one on the right-hand side of the plot. I got the following (reproducible example) code working:

library(dplyr)
library(plotly)

plot_ly() %>% 
  add_lines(x = ~1:3, y = ~10*(1:3), name = "slope of 10") %>% 
  add_lines(x = ~2:4, y = ~1:3, name = "slope of 1", yaxis = "y2") %>% 
  layout(
    title = "Double Y Axis", 
    yaxis2 =  list(tickfont = list(color = "red"),
                   overlaying = "y",
                   side = "right",
                   title = "second y axis"),
    xaxis = list(title="x")
  )

However, with my actual data, the legend is somewhat weirdly positioned and overlaps with the y-axis tick labels and the title. As it is reactive data, I don't know for every situation what the y-axes will look like. Therefore, I would like to move the legend to the bottom (horizontally oriented) to give the y-axis more space. Although I have the code to move the legend (see the code chunck below), it resulted in a rescaling of the graph that made the secondary Y-axis unreadable. As you can see in the example picture the decimals aren't in the graph area anymore and the y-axis title now overlaps with the tick labels.

plot_ly() %>% 
  add_lines(x = ~1:3, y = ~10*(1:3), name = "slope of 10") %>% 
  add_lines(x = ~2:4, y = ~1:3, name = "slope of 1", yaxis = "y2") %>% 
  layout(
    title = "Double Y Axis", 
    yaxis2 =  list(tickfont = list(color = "red"),
                   overlaying = "y",
                   side = "right",
                   title = "second y axis"),
    xaxis = list(title="x"),
    legend = list(orientation = 'h', x = 0.35, y = -.15)
  )

Is it possible to rescale the plot so it becomes readable? I tried adjusting the position of the secondary y-axis, but that also resulted in a ugly result (as the axis will be somewhere in the 'middle' of your plot). So my prefered outcome is the y-axis and its title similarly positioned as in the first code example, with the legend (horizontally oriented) at the bottom of the plot as in the second code example.

KC Song KC Song · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-21T18:23:48

You can add a margin (currently only increase the margin on the right for "r") to the plot as the title is anchor to the right side.

plot_ly() %>% 
  add_lines(x = ~1:3, y = ~10*(1:3), name = "slope of 10") %>% 
  add_lines(x = ~2:4, y = ~1:3, name = "slope of 1", yaxis = "y2") %>% 
  layout(
    title = "Double Y Axis", 
    yaxis2 =  list(tickfont = list(color = "red"),
                   overlaying = "y",
                   side = "right",
                   title = "second y axis"
                   ),
    xaxis = list(title="x"),
    margin = list(
          r = 50
    ),
    legend = list(orientation = 'h', x = 0.35, y = -.15)
  )

Example

Prevent secondary plotly axis to dropping from graph area

1 Answers