Adjust plot title (main) position

I have been unable to find a way to adjust the (vertical) distance between plot and main title in R using par. In this example:

plot(1, 1, main = "Title")

I can adjust the position of the axis titles using:

par(mgp = c(2.5, 1, 0))

But I see no way to similarly adjust the main title. I am aware that more manual control is possible using title or mtext, but I assume that there is a way setting the title distance using par as well, which would be more elegant for my purposes.

Solution 1:

We can use title() function with negative line value to bring down the title.

See this example:

plot(1, 1)
title("Title", line = -2)

Solution 2:

To summarize and explain visually how it works. Code construction is as follows:

par(mar = c(3,2,2,1))
barplot(...all parameters...)
title("Title text", adj = 0.5, line = 0)

explanation:

par(mar = c(low, left, top, right)) - margins of the graph area.

title("text" - title text
      adj  = from left (0) to right (1) with anything in between: 0.1, 0.2, etc...
      line = positive values move title text up, negative - down)

Solution 3:

Try this:

par(adj = 0)
plot(1, 1, main = "Title")

or equivalent:

plot(1, 1, main = "Title", adj = 0)

adj = 0 produces left-justified text, 0.5 (the default) centered text and 1 right-justified text. Any value in [0, 1] is allowed.

However, the issue is that this will also change the position of the label of the x-axis and y-axis.