How do I include strikethrough text in geom_text_repel or geom_text labels for ggplot?

Question

Is it possible to add strikethrough to some geom_text/geom_text_repel labels?

This question mentioned that you can italicise a label using the following:

library("ggplot2")
library("ggrepel")

df <- data.frame(
  x = c(1,2),
  y = c(2,4),
  lab = c("italic('Italic Text')", "Normal"))

ggplot(df, aes(x, y, label = lab)) +
    geom_point() +
    geom_text_repel(parse = T)

However, I've been unable to use the same method to get strikethrough text.

df$lab = c("strike('Strikethrough Text')", "Normal")

ggplot(df, aes(x, y, label = lab)) +
    geom_point() +
    geom_text_repel(parse = T)

Answer 1

What about using a Unicode long strike overlay?

R Script
# Long strikethru test
# Unicode Character 'COMBINING LONG STROKE OVERLAY' (U+0336)

library("tidyverse")

# Keep 30 first rows in the mtcars natively available dataset
data <- head(mtcars, 30)

name <- "Strikethrough"
name_strk <- str_replace_all(name, "(?<=.)", "\u0336")

# Add one annotation
ggplot(data, aes(x=wt, y=mpg)) +
  geom_point() + # Show dots
  geom_label(
    label= name_strk,
    x=4.1,
    y=20,
    label.padding = unit(0.55, "lines"), # Rectangle size around label
    label.size = 0.35,
    color = "black",
    size = 4,
    fill="white"
  )