Can you remove white space when pasting a ggplot2 plot into Word?

Question

I'm trying to remove the margins around a plot from ggplot2. I'm working in a waffle context, so the reproducible example below is in this form.

I have followed the answers provided in Remove Plot Margins in ggplot2, but am still getting a strange result. I run the following code, and make the background of the plot yellow to highlight the margins.

library("waffle")

parts <- data.frame(
  names = LETTERS[1:4],
  vals = c(80, 30, 20, 10)
)

waffle(parts, rows = 8, xlab = "Each Square = X",legend_pos = "bottom") + 
  guides(fill = guide_legend(ncol=1))  +
  theme(plot.margin = margin(0,0,0,0,unit = "cm"),
        legend.margin = margin(b=0,unit="cm"),
        plot.background = element_rect(fill="yellow"))

ggsave(file = "graphs/test.jpg")

The following image is what I see when I paste the jpg into Word.

The yellow border confirms that the margins are correctly specified, but get the white border around the graph inside of the dashed line. Is there a way to avoid this?

Answer 1

I was struggling with the same problem. In waffle function you can't change color of square boarders to transparent. But you can produce same waffle plot with ggplot2. Check code below:

library(tidyverse)

parts <- data.frame(
  names = LETTERS[1:4],
  vals = c(80, 30, 20, 10)
)

nrw = 8 # - number of rows
brd = .02 # - space between squares

parts %>%
  as_tibble() %>%
  transmute(sq = map2(names, vals, ~rep(.x, .y))) %>%
  unnest() %>%
  mutate(rn = row_number() %>% `/`(nrw) %>% ceiling()) %>%
  group_by(rn) %>%
  mutate(
    cn = row_number(),
    xmin = rn - .5 + brd,
    xmax = rn + .5 - brd,
    ymin = cn - .5 + brd,
    ymax = cn + .5 - brd
  ) %>%
  ggplot(aes(
    xmin = xmin,
    xmax = xmax,
    ymin = ymin,
    ymax = ymax,
    fill = sq
  )) +
  geom_rect() +
  coord_equal() +
  theme_void() +
  theme(plot.background = element_rect(fill = 'yellow'))