Question

I am using ggplot2 to plot simple line charts of time series data. One difficulty I have run into is labelling specific points corresponding to x-axis values i.e. dates.

library(ggplot2)
library(scales)
date <- c("2011-09-19","2011-09-20","2011-09-21",
    "2011-09-22","2011-09-23","2011-09-26","2011-09-27")
price <- c(100,110,105,115,120,115,125)
tmp <- data.frame(date,price)
tmp$date <- as.Date(tmp$date)
p <- ggplot(tmp,aes(tmp$date,tmp$price))
p <- p + xlab("Date")
p <- p + ylab("Price")
p <- p + layer(geom = "line")
p <- p + opts(title="Simple price plot")
print(p)

What I would like to do is add an annotation to a specific date, which might be a maximum or a minimum value or something else of note. So far all the permutations of geom_text I have used have failed to get the effect I want (or indeed anything useful). There are a few questions on this on SO but most seem related to scatter charts rather than time series; I haven’t been successful in trying to adapt them. I have also spent some time with the documentation but my understanding is still limited. Any pointers would be appreciated.

Answer 1

To add text to ggplot, use geom_text:

Method 1: Add a column of labels to your data.frame:

tmp$note <- LETTERS[1:7]

ggplot(tmp,aes(date, price, label=note)) +
  geom_line() +
  geom_text(vjust=0, colour="red")

Method 2: Add a specific label:

ggplot(tmp,aes(date, price, label=date)) +
  geom_line() +
  geom_text(data=tmp[3, ], label="Something of note", vjust=1)