Alternatives to using text() to adding text to a plot

This may be a naive question, but I was wondering if there's a better way than using text() to adding text to a plot. Note, I'm also using layout() as well. Specifically, I have a section of a plot where I would like to add some text with headings followed by regular text.

text() is fine it seems for simple a开发者_如何转开发nnotations, but to get the spacing right for several lines of text seems to require a lot of manual manipulation of the x and y and cex parameters. Any suggestions?

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Here are some alternative options to consider:
- the gplots package has a textplot function to add some text output in a base graphics plot.
- plotrix has a function addtable2plot
- for grid graphics grid.text() is available and in gridExtra there is a function grid.table() (see, e.g., R-Wiki)

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If you're using base graphics, then text() is probably your best bet, and fiddling with coordinates etc is part of the game. If you want to learn a new framework, the lattice package is a reworking of the basic approach to plotting in R. It be installed by default so help(package='lattice') will get you started.

Here's a pretty good guide (pdf) to graphics in general in R, with a substantial section on lattice: download