Annotating text on individual facet in ggplot2

Typically you'd do something like this:

ann_text <- data.frame(mpg = 15,wt = 5,lab = "Text",
                       cyl = factor(8,levels = c("4","6","8")))
p + geom_text(data = ann_text,label = "Text")

It should work without specifying the factor variable completely, but will probably throw some warnings:

Here's the plot without text annotations:

library(ggplot2)

p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, wt)) +
  geom_point() +
  facet_grid(. ~ cyl) +
  theme(panel.spacing = unit(1, "lines"))
p

Let's create an additional data frame to hold the text annotations:

dat_text <- data.frame(
  label = c("4 cylinders", "6 cylinders", "8 cylinders"),
  cyl   = c(4, 6, 8)
)
p + geom_text(
  data    = dat_text,
  mapping = aes(x = -Inf, y = -Inf, label = label),
  hjust   = -0.1,
  vjust   = -1
)

Alternatively, we can manually specify the position of each label:

dat_text <- data.frame(
  label = c("4 cylinders", "6 cylinders", "8 cylinders"),
  cyl   = c(4, 6, 8),
  x     = c(20, 27.5, 25),
  y     = c(4, 4, 4.5)
)

p + geom_text(
  data    = dat_text,
  mapping = aes(x = x, y = y, label = label)
)

We can also label plots across two facets:

dat_text <- data.frame(
  cyl   = c(4, 6, 8, 4, 6, 8),
  am    = c(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1)
)
dat_text$label <- sprintf(
  "%s, %s cylinders",
  ifelse(dat_text$am == 0, "automatic", "manual"),
  dat_text$cyl
)
p +
  facet_grid(am ~ cyl) +
  geom_text(
    size    = 5,
    data    = dat_text,
    mapping = aes(x = Inf, y = Inf, label = label),
    hjust   = 1.05,
    vjust   = 1.5
  )

Notes:

• You can use -Inf and Inf to position text at the edges of a panel.
• You can use hjust and vjust to adjust the text justification.
• The text label data frame dat_text should have a column that works with your facet_grid() or facet_wrap().