Using Google Fonts in R-Project visualizations

Inspiration: You Can Design a Good Chart with R

Here is a quick post on using Google fonts in R-Project charts.

Below are the steps to be followed:

1. Download the font of choice from https://fonts.google.com/
2. Unzip the downloaded fonts
3. Transfer the fonts to ~/Library/Fonts for convienience and reuse
   • You can put it elsewhere and set the path accordingly in the code below:

library(extrafont)
extrafont::font_import("/Users/santosh/Library/Fonts", prompt = FALSE)

4. Import the fonts using the above code
5. Specify ggplot font-family to use the required font

That's it! See sample below! Here, we use the Open Sans Condensed font!

# Demo to use fonts from https://fonts.google.com

# handle the infamous error!
# Error in grid.Call(C_textBounds, as.graphicsAnnot(x$label), x$x, x$y,  : 
#   polygon edge not found

library(extrafont)
extrafont::font_import("/Users/santosh/Library/Fonts", prompt = FALSE)

# credit: https://gist.github.com/hrbrmstr/283850725519e502e70c
# credit: https://medium.com/nightingale/you-can-design-a-good-chart-with-r-5d00ed7dd18e

# note: I fixed the font family from the original code.

library(tidyverse)
library(ggplot2)

dat <- read.csv("https://gist.githubusercontent.com/hrbrmstr/283850725519e502e70c/raw/2bd3ad9ac8183f826edea333dde167d43031672e/supreme_court_vacancies.csv",
                col.names=c("year", "wait"))

# We only want every other tick labeled
xlabs <- seq(1780, 2020, by=10)
xlabs[seq(2, 24, by=2)]  <-  " "

# Pretty long caption
caption <- "Note: Vacancies are counted as the number of days between a justice's death, retirement or resignation and the successor justice's swearing in (or commissioning in the case of a recess appointment) as a member of the court.Sources: U.S. Senate, 'Supreme Court Nominations, present-1789'; Supreme Court, 'Members of the Supreme Court of the United States'; Pew Research Center calculations"
caption <- paste0(strwrap(caption, 160), sep="", collapse="\n")
# you could probably just use caption <- label_wrap_gen(160)(caption) instead

annot <- read.table(text=
"year|wait|just|text
1848|860|0|Robert Cooper Grier was sworn in Aug 10, 1846,<br>841 days after the death of Henry Baldwin
1969|440|1|Henry Blackmun was sworn<br>in June 9, 1970, 391 days<br>after Abe Fortas resigned.
1990|290|0|Anthony Kennedy<br>was sworn in Feb.<br>18, 1988, 237<br>days after Lewis<br>Powell retired.",
sep="|", header=TRUE, stringsAsFactors=FALSE)

annot$text <- gsub("<br>", "\n", annot$text)


gg <- ggplot()
gg <- gg + geom_point(data=dat, aes(x=year, y=wait))
gg <- gg + geom_label(aes(x=1780, y=900, label="days"),
                      family="OpenSansCondensed-Light",
                      size=3.5, hjust=0, label.size=0, color="#2b2b2b")
gg <- gg + geom_label(data=annot, aes(x=year, y=wait, label=text, hjust=just),
                      family="OpenSansCondensed-Light", lineheight=0.95,
                      size=3, label.size=0, color="#2b2b2b")
gg <- gg + scale_x_continuous(expand=c(0,0),
                              breaks=seq(1780, 2020, by=10),
                              labels=xlabs, limits=c(1780,2020))
gg <- gg + scale_y_continuous(expand=c(0,10),
                              breaks=seq(100, 900, by=100),
                              limits=c(0, 1000))
gg <- gg + labs(x=NULL, y=NULL,
                title="Lengthy Supreme Court vacancies are rare now, but weren't always",
                subtitle="Supreme Court vacancies, by duration",
                caption=caption)
gg <- gg + theme_minimal(base_family="OpenSansCondensed-Light")
gg <- gg + theme(panel.grid=element_line())
gg <- gg + theme(panel.grid.major.y=element_line(color="#2b2b2b", linetype="dotted", size=0.15))
gg <- gg + theme(panel.grid.major.x=element_blank())
gg <- gg + theme(panel.grid.minor.x=element_blank())
gg <- gg + theme(panel.grid.minor.y=element_blank())
gg <- gg + theme(axis.line=element_line())
gg <- gg + theme(axis.line.x=element_line(color="#2b2b2b", size=0.15))
gg <- gg + theme(axis.ticks=element_line())
gg <- gg + theme(axis.ticks.x=element_line(color="#2b2b2b", size=0.15))
gg <- gg + theme(axis.ticks.y=element_blank())
gg <- gg + theme(axis.ticks.length=unit(5, "pt"))
gg <- gg + theme(plot.margin=unit(rep(0.5, 4), "cm"))
gg <- gg + theme(axis.text.y=element_text(margin=margin(r=-5)))
gg <- gg + theme(plot.title=element_text(family="OpenSansCondensed-Bold", margin=margin(b=15)))
gg <- gg + theme(plot.subtitle=element_text(family="OpenSansCondensed-LightItalic"))
gg <- gg + theme(plot.caption=element_text(size=8, hjust=0, margin=margin(t=15)))
gg