ggvenn

Venn Diagram by ggplot2, with really easy-to-use API.

Screenshots

Installation

install.packages("ggvenn") # install via CRAN

or

if (!require(devtools)) install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("yanlinlin82/ggvenn") # install via GitHub (for latest version)

Quick Start

This package provides two main functions: ggvenn() and geom_venn(). It supports both list and data.frame type data as input.

Basic Usage

For list data (each element is a set):

library(ggvenn)

a <- list(A = 1:5, B = 4:9, C = 3:7, D = 1:20, E = 15:19)
ggvenn(a, c("A", "B"))            # draw two-set venn
ggvenn(a, c("A", "B", "C"))       # draw three-set venn
ggvenn(a, c("A", "B", "C", "D"))  # draw four-set venn
ggvenn(a)   # without set names, all elements in list will be chosen to draw venn

For data.frame data (each logical column is a set):

d <- data.frame(
  id = 1:32,
  A = 1:32 %% 2 == 1,
  B = (1:32 %/% 2) %% 2 == 1,
  C = (1:32 %/% 4) %% 2 == 1,
  D = (1:32 %/% 8) %% 2 == 1,
  E = (1:32 %/% 16) %% 2 == 1
)
ggvenn(d, c("A", "B"))            # draw two-set venn
ggvenn(d, c("A", "B", "C"))       # draw three-set venn
ggvenn(d, c("A", "B", "C", "D"))  # draw four-set venn
ggvenn(d)  # without set names, all logical columns in data.frame will be chosen to draw venn
ggvenn(d, element_column = "id", show_elements = TRUE)

Key Features

• Two functions: ggvenn() for standalone plots, geom_venn() for ggplot2 grammar
• Multiple sets: Supports 2-8 sets (optimal for 2-4 sets)
• Flexible input: Works with both lists and data.frames
• Customizable: Colors, sizes, transparency, and text options
• Show elements: Display actual elements instead of just counts
• Auto-scaling: Automatically resize circles based on element counts (2-set diagrams)

For data.frame data, there is also another way to plot in ggplot grammar:

# draw two-set venn (use A, B in aes)
ggplot(d, aes(A = `Set 1`, B = `Set 2`)) +
  geom_venn() + theme_void() + coord_fixed()

# draw three-set venn (use A, B, C in aes)
ggplot(d, aes(A = `Set 1`, B = `Set 2`, C = `Set 3`)) +
  geom_venn() + theme_void() + coord_fixed()

# draw four-set venn (use A, B, C, D in aes)
ggplot(d, aes(A = `Set 1`, B = `Set 2`, C = `Set 3`, D = `Set 4`)) +
  geom_venn() + theme_void() + coord_fixed()

More Options

There are more options for customizing the venn diagram.

1. Tune the color and size

   For filling:

   • fill_color - default is c("blue", "yellow", "green", "red")
   • fill_alpha - default is 0.5

   For stroke:

   • stroke_color - default is "black"
   • stroke_alpha - default is 1
   • stroke_size - default is 1
   • stroke_linetype - default is "solid"

   For set name:

   • set_name_color - default is "black"
   • set_name_size - default is 6

   For text:

   • text_color - default is "black"
   • text_size - default is 4

   All parameters above could be used in both ggvenn() and geom_venn().

   For example:

   a <- list(A = 1:4, B = c(1,3,5))
   ggvenn(a, stroke_linetype = 2, stroke_size = 0.5,
     set_name_color = "red", set_name_size = 15,
     fill_color = c("pink", "gold"))

2. Show elements

   • show_elements - default is FALSE
   • label_sep - text used to concatenate elements, default is ","

   For example:

   a <- list(A = c("apple", "pear", "peach"),
             B = c("apple", "lemon"))
   ggvenn(a, show_elements = TRUE)
   
   ggvenn(a, show_elements = TRUE, label_sep = "\n")  # show elements in line

3. Hide percentage

   • show_percentage - default is TRUE

   For example:

   a <- list(A = 1:5, B = 1:2)
   ggvenn(a, show_percentage = FALSE)

4. Change digits of percentage

   • digits - default is 1

   For example:

   a <- list(A = 1:5, B = 1:2)
   ggvenn(a, digits = 2)

5. Show/hide statistics

   • show_stats - control what to display: "cp" (count + percentage), "c" (count only), "p" (percentage only)
   • show_set_totals - show totals for each set: "cp", "c", "p", or "none"

   For example:

   a <- list(A = 1:5, B = 1:2)
   ggvenn(a, show_stats = "c")        # show only counts
   ggvenn(a, show_stats = "p")        # show only percentages
   ggvenn(a, show_set_totals = "cp")  # show set totals

6. Control outside elements

   • show_outside - show elements not belonging to any set: "auto", "none", "always"

   For example:

   a <- list(A = 1:5, B = 4:8, C = 10:15)  # element 10-15 are outside A and B
   ggvenn(a, c("A", "B"), show_outside = "always")

7. Auto-scaling (2-set diagrams only)

   • auto_scale - automatically resize circles based on element counts

   For example:

   a <- list(A = 1:100, B = 50:150)  # very different sizes
   ggvenn(a, auto_scale = TRUE)

Multiple Plots Layout

When creating multiple venn diagrams, you can use patchwork or gridExtra for layout:

library(ggvenn)
library(patchwork)  # or library(gridExtra)

# Create multiple plots
g1 <- ggvenn(list(A = 1:5, B = 4:8))
g2 <- ggvenn(list(A = 1:5, B = 4:8, C = 3:7))
g3 <- ggvenn(list(A = 1:5, B = 4:8, C = 3:7, D = 1:20))
g4 <- ggvenn(list(A = 1:5, B = 4:8, C = 3:7, D = 1:20, E = 15:19))

# Using patchwork (recommended)
(g1 | g2) / (g3 | g4)

# Using gridExtra
# gridExtra::grid.arrange(g1, g2, g3, g4, ncol = 2, nrow = 2)

Data Format

The ggvenn support two types of input data: list and data.frame. Two functions (data_frame_to_list() and list_to_data_frame()) can convert data between the two types.

a <- list(A = 1:5, B = 4:6)
d <- dplyr::tibble(key = 1:6,
            A = c(rep(TRUE, 5), FALSE),
            B = rep(c(FALSE, TRUE), each = 3))

identical(a, data_frame_to_list(d))  # TRUE
identical(d, list_to_data_frame(a))  # TRUE