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Asked: 2026-06-06T20:52:04+00:00

I’m trying to plot timeseries data using ggplot2. Specifically, I’m trying to generate a

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I’m trying to plot timeseries data using ggplot2. Specifically, I’m trying to generate a line chart with three groups of data plotted over five years (annual datapoints). That I can do without a problem. See here

Basic timeseries plot

My problem comes when I’m trying to apply color to it, in this case using my preferred method: scale_fill_brewer(). When I attempt to plot that, as follows:

> p + geom_line() + scale_fill_brewer(palette = "Set1")

Unfortunately, this generates the following error:

In brewer.pal(n, pal) :
minimal value for n is 3, returning requested palette with 3 different levels

Which is confusing a) because I have the minimum of three groups here and b) because I can successfully apply scale_fill_brewer() to a bar charted plot.

Anyone scale_fill_brewer() well enough to understand what I’m doing wrong?

Update: Per the request, here’s how I generated P.

> osr.m
Date                                         Type Revenue
1  5/31/07                        New.software.licenses    5882
2  5/31/08                        New.software.licenses    7515
3  5/31/09                        New.software.licenses    7123
4  5/31/10                        New.software.licenses    7533
5  5/31/11                        New.software.licenses    9235
6  5/31/12                        New.software.licenses    9906 
7  5/31/07 Software.license.updates.and.product.support    8329
8  5/31/08 Software.license.updates.and.product.support   10328
9  5/31/09 Software.license.updates.and.product.support   11754  
10 5/31/10 Software.license.updates.and.product.support   13092
11 5/31/11 Software.license.updates.and.product.support   14796
12 5/31/12 Software.license.updates.and.product.support   16210
13 5/31/07                            Software.revenues   14211
14 5/31/08                            Software.revenues   17843
15 5/31/09                            Software.revenues   18877
16 5/31/10                            Software.revenues   20625
17 5/31/11                            Software.revenues   24031
18 5/31/12                            Software.revenues   26116

p <- ggplot(osr.m, aes(x=Date, y=Revenue, group=Type))
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Assuming you really are looking to use fill rather than colour, this is what I’d do:

    dat <- read.table(text = "Date                                         Type Revenue
1  5/31/07                        New.software.licenses    5882
2  5/31/08                        New.software.licenses    7515
3  5/31/09                        New.software.licenses    7123
4  5/31/10                        New.software.licenses    7533
5  5/31/11                        New.software.licenses    9235
6  5/31/12                        New.software.licenses    9906 
7  5/31/07 Software.license.updates.and.product.support    8329
8  5/31/08 Software.license.updates.and.product.support   10328
9  5/31/09 Software.license.updates.and.product.support   11754  
10 5/31/10 Software.license.updates.and.product.support   13092
11 5/31/11 Software.license.updates.and.product.support   14796
12 5/31/12 Software.license.updates.and.product.support   16210
13 5/31/07                            Software.revenues   14211
14 5/31/08                            Software.revenues   17843
15 5/31/09                            Software.revenues   18877
16 5/31/10                            Software.revenues   20625
17 5/31/11                            Software.revenues   24031
18 5/31/12                            Software.revenues   26116",sep = "",header = TRUE)

dat$Date <- as.Date(dat$Date,"%m/%d/%y")
ggplot(dat,aes(x = Date,y = Revenue)) + 
    geom_area(aes(group = Type,fill = Type)) + 
    scale_fill_brewer(palette = "Set1") +
    opts(legend.position = "none")

    enter image description here

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