You can use the following basic syntax to produce italic font in R plots:
substitute(paste(italic('this text is italic')))
The following examples show how to use this syntax in practice.
Example 1: Italic Font in Title of Plot
The following code shows how to use italic font in the title of a plot in R:
#define data x <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9) y <- c(8, 8, 9, 10, 13, 12, 10, 11, 14, 17) #create scatterplot with title in italics plot(x, y, main = substitute(paste(italic('Scatterplot of x vs. y'))))
Note that we can also specify italic font for only some of the words in the title:
#create scatterplot with only some of title in italics plot(x, y, main = substitute(paste(italic('Scatterplot of'), ' x vs. y')))
Example 2: Italic Font on Axis Labels of Plot
The following code shows how to specify italic font for the x-axis and y-axis labels of a plot:
#define data x <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9) y <- c(8, 8, 9, 10, 13, 12, 10, 11, 14, 17) #create scatterplot with axes labels in italics plot(x, y, xlab = substitute(paste(italic('X Label'))), ylab = substitute(paste(italic('Y Label'))))
Example 3: Italic Font with Text in Plot
The following code shows how to include italic font for a text element inside of a plot:
#define data x <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9) y <- c(8, 8, 9, 10, 13, 12, 10, 11, 14, 17) #create scatterplot plot(x, y) #add italic text at location x=3, y=16 text(3, 16, substitute(paste(italic('This is some italic text'))))
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common functions in R:
How to Add Superscripts & Subscripts to Plots in R
How to Change Font Size in ggplot2