Venn diagram in ggplot2

Package

Author

Chun-Hui Gao

Venn diagram with `ggVennDiagram`

ggVennDiagram allows creating Venn diagrams based on ggplot2. You need to pass a list of vectors containing your data to the ggVennDiagram function as in the following example. Note that character vectors will be transformed into numeric.

# install.packages("ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7)

# 2D Venn diagram
ggVennDiagram(x)

Venn diagram in ggplot2 with ggVennDiagram

3D Venn diagram

If you pass a list with three elements you will get some Venn diagram like the following.

# install.packages("ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7, C = 5:10)

# 3D Venn diagram
ggVennDiagram(x)

3d Venn diagram in R

4D Venn diagram

You can also pass a list with up to four different elements. If you need to add more refer to the documentation.

# install.packages("ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7, C = 5:10, D = 8:15)

# 4D Venn diagram
ggVennDiagram(x)

4d Venn diagram in ggplot2

Changing the colors of the diagram

Change the colors of the Venn diagram in ggplot2

As ggVennDiagram is based on ggplot2 you can add more layers or override the ones existing. In order to change the colors use scale_fill_gradient as in the following example.

# install.packages("ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)
# install.packages("ggplot2")
library(ggplot2)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7, C = 5:10)

# Venn diagram with custom colors
ggVennDiagram(x) + 
  scale_fill_gradient(low = "#F4FAFE", high = "#4981BF")

Change the border color and style of the Venn diagram

The border can also be customized but making use of color argument. The line width and line style can be changed with lwd and lty, respectively.

# install.packages("ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)
# install.packages("ggplot2")
library(ggplot2)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7, C = 5:10)

# Venn diagram with custom border
ggVennDiagram(x, color = "black", lwd = 0.8, lty = 1) + 
  scale_fill_gradient(low = "#F4FAFE", high = "#4981BF")

Labels and group names

Group names

By default, the function uses the names of the list to set the category names, but you can override them with category.names.

# install.packages("ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7, C = 5:10)

# Venn diagram with custom category names
ggVennDiagram(x, category.names = c("Group 1",
                                    "Group 2",
                                    "Group 3"))

Modify the category names of the ggplot Venn diagram

Labels with percentages

Labels display percentages and the count of values. Set label = "percent" to only show percentages.

# install.packages("ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7, C = 5:10)

# Venn diagram with percentages
ggVennDiagram(x, 
              label = "percent")

ggplot2 Venn diagram with percentage

Labels with count

If you prefer showing only the count set label = "count".

# install.packages("ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7, C = 5:10)

# Venn diagram with count labels
ggVennDiagram(x, 
              label = "count")

ggplot venn diagram package with count

Remove the labels

It is possible to remove all the labels just setting label = NULL.

# install.packages("ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7, C = 5:10)

# Venn diagram without labels
ggVennDiagram(x, 
              label = NULL)

ggVennDiagram package without labels

Labels transparency

If you install the development version of the package from GitHub there is an additional argument that allows modifying the transparency of the background of the labels.

# install.packages("devtools")
# devtools::install_github("gaospecial/ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7, C = 5:10)

# Labels transparency
ggVennDiagram(x, 
              label_alpha = 0)

ggVennDiagram labels transparency

Remove or customize the legend

Venn diagram legend in R

The legend of the Venn diagrams can be customized adding more layers to the plot. In the following example we are modifying the legend title and the legend position.

# install.packages("ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)
# install.packages("ggplot2")
library(ggplot2)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7, C = 5:10)

# Venn diagram with custom legend
ggVennDiagram(x) + 
  guides(fill = guide_legend(title = "Title")) +
  theme(legend.title = element_text(color = "red"),
        legend.position = "bottom")

Removing the legend in ggplot2 ggVennDiagram

It is possible to remove the legend of the diagram just setting its position to "none".

# install.packages("ggVennDiagram")
library(ggVennDiagram)
# install.packages("ggplot2")
library(ggplot2)

# List of items
x <- list(A = 1:5, B = 2:7, C = 5:10)

# Venn diagram without legend
ggVennDiagram(x, color = 1, lwd = 0.7) + 
 scale_fill_gradient(low = "#F4FAFE", high = "#4981BF") +
 theme(legend.position = "none")