Axes labels are not properly placed when combining faceted and single plots

[eggrandio]

I am combinining four plots, two of them have facets and two of them are single plots. They all have the same y axes.

When I arrange them, the y axes labels of the single plots are not placed properly, and they have extra padding:

Here is the code I have used:

faceted_plot<-
  ggplot(input_data, aes(x = Line, y = indel, fill = gene)) +
  geom_bar(position = "dodge", stat = "identity") +
  scale_y_continuous(expand = expansion(mult = c(0, 0))) +
  scale_fill_manual(values = wes_palette("GrandBudapest1")[1:2])
  facet_grid(~Plasmid, 
             scales = "free_x", 
             space = "free", 
             switch = "x") +
  labs(y = "% indel",
       fill = "Gene") +
  theme(legend.justification = "left", strip.placement = "outside",
        strip.background = element_blank(),
        axis.title.x = element_blank())

single_plot <-
  ggplot(input_data2, aes(x = Line, y = indel, fill = gene)) +
  geom_bar(position = "dodge", stat = "identity") +
  scale_y_continuous(expand = expansion(mult = c(0, 0))) +
  scale_fill_manual(values = wes_palette("GrandBudapest1")) +
  labs(y = "% indel",
       fill = "Gene") +
  theme(legend.justification = "left")

final_plot <- faceted_plot1 / faceted_plot2 / single_plot1 / single_plot2

[eggrandio]

Thanks for the reply. I removed the strip in the example for simplicity, but I need to have them as I use them as x axes labels. If there is no other way of doing it, I might have to assign the facet names to the x axes labels of the faceted plots.

[trekonom]

Aw. Sorry. My fault. One option to fix your issue would be to use a fake facet_grid for your single plots too:

library(wesanderson)
library(ggplot2)
library(patchwork)

set.seed(123)

input_data <- input_data2 <- data.frame(
  Line = sample(1:40, 100, replace = TRUE),
  gene = sample(letters[1:2], 100, replace = TRUE),
  Plasmid = sample(LETTERS[1:2], 100, replace = TRUE),
  indel = runif(100)
)

faceted_plot <-
  ggplot(input_data, aes(x = Line, y = indel, fill = gene)) +
  geom_bar(position = "dodge", stat = "identity") +
  scale_y_continuous(expand = expansion(mult = c(0, 0))) +
  scale_fill_manual(values = wes_palette("GrandBudapest1")[1:2]) +
  facet_grid(~Plasmid,
    scales = "free_x",
    space = "free_x",
    switch = "x"
  ) +
  labs(
    y = "% indel",
    fill = "Gene"
  ) +
  theme(
    legend.justification = "left",
    strip.background = element_blank(),
    strip.placement = "outside",
    axis.title.x = element_blank()
  )

single_plot <-
  ggplot(input_data2, aes(x = Line, y = indel, fill = gene)) +
  geom_bar(position = "dodge", stat = "identity") +
  scale_y_continuous(expand = expansion(mult = c(0, 0))) +
  scale_fill_manual(values = wes_palette("GrandBudapest1")) +
  facet_grid(~ factor(1),
    scales = "free_x",
    space = "free_x",
    switch = "x"
  ) +
  labs(
    y = "% indel",
    fill = "Gene"
  ) +
  theme(
    strip.placement = "outside",
    strip.text = element_blank()
  )

final_plot <- faceted_plot / single_plot

final_plot