Cowplot: R Package for Publication-Quality Plot Themes and Annotations

Cowplot is an R package providing themes, alignment functions, and annotation tools for creating publication-quality figures with 'ggplot2'. It was originally developed for internal use in the Wilke lab and has been used extensively in the book Fundamentals of Data Visualization. The package's features are designed to streamline the creation of complex compound figures and annotated plots.

Use Cases

• Applying consistent, publication-ready themes to ggplot2 visualizations based on the package's theme functions.
• Aligning multiple plots and arranging them into complex compound figures using the provided alignment and arrangement functions.
• Annotating plots or mixing plots with images using the package's specialized annotation tools.

Strengths

• Features are battle-tested, having been used extensively in the published book Fundamentals of Data Visualization.
• Provides a cohesive set of tools specifically designed for the common workflow of finalizing publication graphics.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Claus O. Wilke

Collection Method

Developed as an R software package for internal lab use and later released publicly.