Save ggplot Objects to Files — write

A wrapper around ggsave that facilitates saving ggplot objects within knitr documents. Automatically handles file naming and directory creation, with support for multiple output formats.

Usage

write_gg(
  gg_obj = NULL,
  file = NULL,
  target_dir = NULL,
  device = "pdf",
  theme = NULL,
  ...
)

Arguments

gg_obj: The ggplot to be written. If not specified, the last ggplot created will be written.
file: The name of the file to be written. If not specified, the label of the code block will be used.
target_dir: The directory where the file will be written. If not specified, the current working directory will be used.
device: The device to be used for saving the ggplot. Options include "pdf" (default), "png", "jpeg", "tiff", and "svg".
theme: The ggplot2 theme to be applied to the ggplot. Default is the theme specified in the ggplot2 options.
...: Additional arguments to be passed to the ggsave function from the ggplot2 package.

Value

The path of the written file.

Details

This function extends ggplot2::ggsave by:

Using knitr code block labels for automatic file naming
Creating target directories if they don't exist
Supporting multiple output formats (PDF, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, SVG)
Applying custom themes to plots before saving

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
library(ggplot2)

plot_dir <- file.path(tempdir(), "plot")

# Write a ggplot object as a PDF file
p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = wt, y = mpg)) +
  geom_point()

write_gg(
  gg_obj = p,
  file = "plot_file",
  target_dir = plot_dir,
  device = "pdf"
)

unlink(plot_dir)
} # }