Essential R Cheatsheets – The best R cheats — collected, printed, bound!

Ever had this feeling?

“This was so easy in R… what was the command again?”

Maybe you already rely on RStudio’s brilliant cheatsheets. But they’re scattered across your office—tucked under notebooks, hidden beneath coffee mugs, lost in piles of old printouts. And somehow, you end up printing them again and again… because you can never remember where the last copy went.

This time, it’s different.

The solution is simple: collect, curate, print, and bind.

What is offered here is a carefully curated collection of essential R cheatsheets—no clutter, no hunting, no browser tabs—just the things you actually need, optimized for everyday use.

Do we really need this?

Well—at least I do.

When I think, “How did I do this last time?”, I turn to page 11 and immediately see that the U-test in R is called wilcox.test, and that the paired version is simply:

wilcox.test(..., paired = TRUE)

That’s much faster than opening a browser, googling, and hunting for the right Stack Overflow answer. And yes—I still believe it’s faster than asking ChatGPT.

Productivity boost. R at speed.

Or take cluster analysis. What was the name of that distance measure that works across all scale levels? Something with a g?

Turn to page 14 and there it is:

“Gower is particularly interesting because it can be used with mixed data types.”

How do I change scales in ggplot2? How do I parse dates with lubridate? Wide to long (or back again) in tidyr—how did that work?

About 99% of the R commands you’ll use in the next few years are condensed into ~80 pages.

Which cheatsheets are included?

  1. Basic Statistics
    Descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVA, contrast analysis, non-parametric tests, power analysis, correlation, regression, exploratory factor analysis, cluster analysis

  2. Data Import (readr, readxl, googlesheets4)
    Reading, writing, column specification

  3. Data Cleaning (tidyr)
    Tibbles, reshaping data, splitting cells, expanding tables, handling missing values, nested data

  4. Data Transformation (dplyr)
    Summarizing, grouping, case manipulation, variable transformation, vectorized functions, joins

  5. Data Visualization (ggplot2)
    Geoms, stats, scales, coordinate systems, themes, faceting, labels, legends, zooming

  6. Apply & Lists (purrr)
    Map functions, shortcuts, working with lists

  7. Strings (stringr)
    Detecting matches, mutating strings, subsetting, splitting and joining, ordering, helpers, regular expressions

  8. Factors (forcats)
    Inspecting, combining, ordering levels, modifying and dropping levels

  9. Dates & Times (lubridate)
    Date-times, rounding, stamping, time zones, arithmetic

  10. R Markdown / Quarto
    Workflow, knitr, citations, tables, output formats, rendering, sharing

  11. IDE (RStudio / Posit)
    Documents and apps, editor features, version control, debugging, package development, shortcuts, visual editor

  12. Package Development (usethis, devtools)
    Structure, workflow, DESCRIPTION, NAMESPACE, documentation, tests, pkgdown, data, release states

Important:
Most of these cheat sheets are already available individually as pdf and html by Posit (just google “R cheatsheets”).
The idea of this collection is different: a minimal, essential selection, optimized for high-quality printing and long-term use.

Which versions are available?

The 3rd edition features a larger font size, spans around 80 pages, and prioritizes clarity over decorative visuals. It’s available in four formats:

  • Softcover (grayscale) – the most affordable option, perfect for everyday use.
  • Softcover (standard color) – a mid-range option with color.
  • Hardcover (grayscale) – a durable, mid-range hardcover option.
  • Hardcover (premium color) – the most premium version, ideal as a gift for R enthusiasts.

This edition is designed to fit seamlessly into your workflow and budget—whether you want something practical or a showpiece.

The 2nd edition is still available because it takes a different approach. It’s more compact, with a smaller font size, around 40 pages, slightly more content, and a stronger focus on visuals. It is available only in premium color, making it a more expensive option for the number of pages.

Whether you prefer a visually rich, compact guide or a larger, easy-to-read edition, choose the version that best fits your needs and style.

If you’re unsure which to choose, I personally use the grayscale version. I like its simplicity, the cream paper (not plain white), and the affordability. If you know you’ll use it a lot or carry it around frequently, I’d recommend the grayscale hardcover version for extra durability.

Where to get it?

You can find all available versions on the series page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GH8MHRBF?binding=paperback

Feedback

Do you have suggestions to improve the cheatsheets? Is something missing, unclear, or incorrect? I’d love to hear from you. Email me at cheatsheets@johannestitz.com or leave a review on Amazon.