Custom font in ggplot without using {showtext}

Setup for rendering

Important

This chunk is absolutely necessary for rendering html from Rmd/quarto documents.

For pdf outputs, use “cairo_pdf” device.

None of this is necessary when just executed from R code because the device is managed through RStudio setting (Tools > Global Options > Graphics, AGG must be selected there)

knitr::opts_chunk$set(dev = "ragg_png")

Tip

The options for all kind of outputs can be easily set all at once in the yaml headers of the .Rmd/.qmd file.

format:
  # for html outputs
  html:
    knitr:
      opts_chunk:
        dev: "ragg_png"
  # for PDFs
  pdf:
    knitr:
      opts_chunk:
        dev: "cairo_pdf"
  # For word document
  docx:
    knitr:
      opts_chunk:
        dev: "ragg_png"
        dpi: 300

Libraries

library(tidyverse)
library(palmerpenguins)


library(ragg)
library(systemfonts)

Load Font

systemfonts::register_font(name = "iaWriter",
                             plain = "iAWriterQuattroS-Regular.ttf" 
)

Custom font for plot text

penguins %>% 
  ggplot(aes(x = bill_length_mm, y = bill_depth_mm, color = species)) +
  labs(title = "This is the default ggplot2 font") +
  geom_point()

Warning: Removed 2 rows containing missing values (`geom_point()`).

penguins %>% 
  ggplot(aes(x = bill_length_mm, y = bill_depth_mm, color = species)) +
  geom_point() +
  labs(title = "This is a custom font called iaWriter") +
  theme(text =  element_text(family = "iaWriter"))

Warning: Removed 2 rows containing missing values (`geom_point()`).

Before

After

Custom font for points

Add fonts

systemfonts::register_font(name = "fontawesome",
                           plain = "Font Awesome 6 Free-Solid-900.otf" 
)

systemfonts::register_font(name = "fontawesome-brands",
                           plain = "Font Awesome 6 Brands-Regular-400.otf" 
)

Same symbol for all

penguins %>%
  ggplot(aes(x = bill_length_mm, y = bill_depth_mm, color = species)) +
  geom_text(label = "dog", family = "fontawesome")+
  theme(text =  element_text(family = "iaWriter"))

Warning: Removed 2 rows containing missing values (`geom_text()`).

Symbol as aesthetic

penguins %>%
  mutate(shape = case_when(
    species == "Adelie" ~ "linux",
    species == "Chinstrap" ~ "twitter",
    species == "Gentoo" ~ "earlybirds"
  )) %>%
  ggplot(aes(x = bill_length_mm, y = bill_depth_mm, color = species)) +
  geom_text(aes(label = shape), family = "fontawesome-brands") +
  guides(color = guide_legend(override.aes = aes(label = "shapes", alpha = 1, family = "fontawesome"))) +
  theme(text =  element_text(family = "iaWriter"))

Warning: Removed 2 rows containing missing values (`geom_text()`).

Sources

• https://yjunechoe.github.io/posts/2021-06-24-setting-up-and-debugging-custom-fonts/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIOo6T-Z1Qw&ab_channel=DavidKeyes