Reset par to the default values at startup

Question

Normally when I make my own plot functions, I make a construct :

op <- par("mypar"=myvalue)
on.exit(par(op))

which is the standard way of reverting the par to the previous values. Imagine you've been running some functions that did change some of the pars, and you need to reset to the default values at startup in R. What is the convenient way of doing so?

Or in other words : how does one reaches the default values for par()?

Answer 1

From Quick-R

par()              # view current settings
opar <- par()      # make a copy of current settings
par(col.lab="red") # red x and y labels 
hist(mtcars$mpg)   # create a plot with these new settings 
par(opar)          # restore original settings

Answer 2

This is hacky, but:

resetPar <- function() {
    dev.new()
    op <- par(no.readonly = TRUE)
    dev.off()
    op
}

works after a fashion, but it does flash a new device on screen temporarily...

E.g.:

> par(mfrow = c(2,2)) ## some random par change
> par("mfrow")
[1] 2 2
> par(resetPar())     ## reset the pars to defaults
> par("mfrow")        ## back to default
[1] 1 1

Answer 3

Use below script to get back to normal 1 plot:

par(mfrow = c(1,1))

Answer 4

Every time a new device is opened par() will reset, so another option is simply do dev.off() and continue.