Theme text size vs. annotation text size.

lhunsicker · January 24, 2022, 10:07pm

I think that I found the answer. I eventually located specifications of the defaults for theme_bw (and other themes) at:

github.com

tidyverse/ggplot2/blob/main/R/theme-defaults.r

#' Complete themes
#'
#' These are complete themes which control all non-data display. Use
#' [theme()] if you just need to tweak the display of an existing
#' theme.
#'
#' @param base_size base font size, given in pts.
#' @param base_family base font family
#' @param base_line_size base size for line elements
#' @param base_rect_size base size for rect elements
#'
#' @details
#' \describe{
#'
#' \item{`theme_gray()`}{
#' The signature ggplot2 theme with a grey background and white gridlines,
#' designed to put the data forward yet make comparisons easy.}
#'
#' \item{`theme_bw()`}{
#' The classic dark-on-light ggplot2 theme. May work better for presentations

This file has been truncated. show original

There I found what I assume is the answer to my conundrum. The theme defaults include several lines along the following line:
axis.text = element_text(size = rel(0.8), ...
which I assume is the basis for the size discrepancy -- i.e, that the size of the axis ticks and titles are in fact only 80% of the basis text size. So if the journal editors complain that, "all plot text, including annotation text, should be the same size." I at least now know how to correct the discrepancies.

But I sort of like the aesthetics of what the ggplot folks have set up as the defaults.
Larry Hunsicker