collect guides when legend.position="bottom"

I'd like to center a common legend below two plots (see reprex below).
This does not seem to work atm (at least not how I thought it could work), and I somehow expect/fear that this is technically not possible?!?

library(tidyverse)
library(patchwork)

set.seed(17)
dat1 <- tibble(x = rep(1:5,2),
              y = sample(1:10,10,replace = T),
              grp = rep(c("A","B"),each=5))

dat2 <- tibble(x = rep(1:5,2),
              y = sample(1:10,10,replace = T),
              grp = rep(c("A","B"),each=5))


p1 <- ggplot(dat1,aes(x,y)) + geom_line(aes(col=grp))
p2 <- ggplot(dat2,aes(x,y)) + geom_line(aes(col=grp))

p1 + p2 + plot_layout(guides = "collect")

p3 <- ggplot(dat1,aes(x,y)) + 
   geom_line(aes(col=grp)) + 
   theme(legend.position = "bottom")

p4 <- ggplot(dat2,aes(x,y)) + 
   geom_line(aes(col=grp)) + 
   theme(legend.position = "bottom")

p3 + p4 + plot_layout(guides = "collect")

You just need to make sure that the theming of the patchwork has legend.position = 'bottom' as well. This can be done using either the theme argument in plot_annotation(), or by & a theme object to it which will apply the theme to both the patchwork as well as to all subplots:

p1 + p2 + plot_layout(guides = "collect") & theme(legend.position = 'bottom')

This helped so much. If you write the code as + theme instead of & theme, the legend position will not go where it is specified. The & is key.

Awesome! Might be worth emphasizing this point in the (great) online manual on plot_layout. As a newcomer, I came into the exact same issue.

Thanks!

is the manual position of the legend still not possible?

Hi Thomas,

It seems like guides=collect might not be working anymore? I'm re-running the reprex from the first post and I'm getting the same legend twice. However, the position is still working.

Thanks!

Melissa

@melissagwolf

Hi Melissa @melissagwolf,

Are you using R 4.0.0 ? This is a know bug #170 (Unless your session Information says something different)

Lluís

Yep, using 4.0.0. Thank you for the quick response!

This helped so much. If you write the code as + theme instead of & theme, the legend position will not go where it is specified. The & is key.

Thank. you. so. much. you are a godsend

You just need to make sure that the theming of the patchwork has legend.position = 'bottom' as well. This can be done using either the theme argument in plot_annotation(), or by & a theme object to it which will apply the theme to both the patchwork as well as to all subplots:
p1 + p2 + plot_layout(guides = "collect") & theme(legend.position = 'bottom')

What if I don't want to apply the theme to all the subplots?
In other words, I want to have the "collected" legend at the centre bottom of the first two plots, but not for the third one in the first line:
(((p1|p2) + plot_layout(guides = "collect") & theme(legend.position = "bottom"))|p2 + plot_layout(guides = "keep"))/(p1|p2)

I cannot manage to have this working. any solution?

I cannot manage to have this working. any solution?

yup, this is pretty bad when including ggraph or circular visualisation which greatly benefit from theme_void() while other panels are using non-void themes. One thing I tried was manually specifying guide_area() but this did not work because the legend box was in always in vertical orientation (ignoring legend.box='horizontal').

@costavale

What if I don't want to apply the theme to all the subplots? In other words, I want to have the "collected" legend at the centre bottom of the first two plots, but not for the third one in the first line: (((p1|p2) + plot_layout(guides = "collect") & theme(legend.position = "bottom"))|p2 + plot_layout(guides = "keep"))/(p1|p2)

I cannot manage to have this working. any solution?

@costavale In my case, I found two options, one not very fancy, but working and also a downgrading option. So, you can

use plot_annotation() like this:

p1 + p2 + plot_layout(ncol = 2, guides = "collect") +
plot_annotation(theme = theme_minimal() +
theme(legend.position = "bottom"))

or

downgrade ggplot2 from 4.x.x to 3.5.2 and run again, this seems to fix the conflict with patchwork

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collect guides when legend.position="bottom" #136

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collect guides when legend.position="bottom" #136

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thomasp85 commented on Dec 3, 2019

melissagwolf commented on Apr 1, 2020

MatthieuStigler commented on Apr 28, 2020

costavale commented on May 10, 2020

melissagwolf commented on May 12, 2020

llrs commented on May 12, 2020

melissagwolf commented on May 12, 2020

nahorp commented on Mar 11, 2021

costavale commented on Nov 10, 2021

krassowski commented on Jul 27, 2023

OlivaresLD commented on Feb 21, 2026

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