7.2 Labels

When constructing a data visualisation, it is often necessary to make annotations to the data displayed. Conceptually, an annotation supplies metadata for the plot: that is, it provides additional information about the data being displayed. From a practical standpoint, however, metadata is just another form of data. Because of this, the annotation tools in ggplot2 reuse the same geoms that are used to create other plots. However, to meet the specific needs that users often have when annotating plots, there are some helper functions in ggplot2 itself, and a number of other packages have extended ggplot2 in ways you may find helpful.