Draw Venn Diagram by 'ggplot2'

An easy-to-use way to draw pretty Venn diagrams using 'ggplot2'. This package provides functions to create Venn diagrams with customizable colors, labels, and styling options.

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