Add panel border to ggplot2

I have been asked to place a full border around my plot below:

Using panel.border = element_rect(colour = "black") results in losing in the plot becoming blank.

I can't use theme_bw() as it does not have the same functionality as the usual theme, the code I am currently using is below:

graph<-ggplot(d,aes(x=d$AOE, y=d$MEI)
            )+
  geom_point(shape=20, size=3)+
  geom_rug()+
  annotate("text", x = -1.1, y = 14000, label = "27/04/2011") +
  annotate("text", x = -1.3, y = 10400, label = "03/04/1974") +
  xlab("MEI")+
  ylab("AOE")+
  scale_y_log10()+
  theme(axis.text.y   = element_text(size=14),
        axis.text.x   = element_text(size=14),
        axis.title.y  = element_text(size=14),
        axis.title.x  = element_text(size=14),
        panel.background = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.major = element_blank(), 
        panel.grid.minor = element_blank(),
        axis.line = element_line(colour = "black")
  )

graph 

Any advice on how to get a full black border would be very much appreciated!

Solution 1:

To use panel.border you also have to specify a blank fill using fill=NA.

Try this:

library(ggplot2)

ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, disp)) + geom_point() + geom_rug() +
  theme(axis.text.y   = element_text(size=14),
        axis.text.x   = element_text(size=14),
        axis.title.y  = element_text(size=14),
        axis.title.x  = element_text(size=14),
        panel.background = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.major = element_blank(), 
        panel.grid.minor = element_blank(),
        axis.line = element_line(colour = "black"),
        panel.border = element_rect(colour = "black", fill=NA, size=5)
  )

Solution 2:

You can use theme_bw() and theme() together. This should work:

# creating some data
set.seed(1)
d <- data.frame(MEI=rnorm(100), AOE=rlnorm(100, 10, 5))

# creating the plot
ggplot(d,aes(x=MEI, y=AOE)) +
  geom_point(shape=20, size=3) +
  geom_rug() +
  scale_y_log10() +
  theme_bw() +
  theme(panel.grid.major = element_blank(), 
        panel.grid.minor = element_blank(),
        panel.background = element_rect(colour = "black", size=4))

this gives:

A solution without theme_bw() and inspired by @Andrie, but with the use of panel.background instead of panel.border:

ggplot(d,aes(x=MEI, y=AOE)) +
  geom_point(shape=20, size=3) +
  geom_rug() +
  scale_y_log10() +
  theme(panel.grid.major = element_blank(), 
        panel.grid.minor = element_blank(),
        panel.background = element_rect(colour = "black", size=4, fill=NA))

this will give the exact same plot. The difference between panel.background and panel.border is that panel.background is drawn underneath the plot and panel.border is drawn on top of the plot.

Solution 3:

If you use any of the panel. options you will get a border around each individual facet when facetting. If you want a border around the outside of the entire plot, title etc included, then use plot.background. E.g:

library(ggplot2)

ggplot(mtcars, aes(mpg, disp)) + geom_point() + geom_rug() +
  labs(title = "Hello plot!") +
  facet_wrap(~cyl) +
  theme(axis.text.y   = element_text(size=14),
        axis.text.x   = element_text(size=14),
        axis.title.y  = element_text(size=14),
        axis.title.x  = element_text(size=14),
        panel.background = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.major = element_blank(), 
        panel.grid.minor = element_blank(),
        axis.line = element_line(colour = "black"),
        plot.background = element_rect(colour = "black", fill=NA, size=5)
  )

^{Created on 2021-06-22 by the reprex package (v2.0.0)}