Inserting labels in box plot in R on a 45 degree angle?

Question

Is there any way in the boxplot() command to rotate the labels at a 45-degree angle?

I realize the las=2 command rotates them to be perpendicular to the x axis, but I was hoping to have them at 45 degrees.

Answer 1

How about the following:

# Some sample data
x <- list(x = rnorm(100, 2), y = rnorm(100, 4));
# Plot without x axis
boxplot(x, xaxt = "n");
# Add axis labels rotated by 45 degrees
text(seq_along(x), par("usr")[3] - 0.5, labels = names(x), srt = 45, adj = 1, xpd = TRUE);

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PS. Or easier/cleaner in ggplot :

require(ggplot2);
require(reshape2);
df <- melt(x);
ggplot(df, aes(L1, value)) + geom_boxplot() + theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1));