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<section class="sphx-glr-example-title" id="quick-start-guide">
<span id="quick-start"></span><span id="sphx-glr-users-explain-quick-start-py"></span><h1>Quick start guide<a class="headerlink" href="#quick-start-guide" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h1>
<p>This tutorial covers some basic usage patterns and best practices to
help you get started with Matplotlib.</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="kn">import</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nn">matplotlib.pyplot</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="k">as</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nn">plt</span>
<span class="kn">import</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nn">numpy</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="k">as</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nn">np</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<section id="a-simple-example">
<h2>A simple example<a class="headerlink" href="#a-simple-example" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h2>
<p>Matplotlib graphs your data on <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Figure</span></code></a>s (e.g., windows, Jupyter
widgets, etc.), each of which can contain one or more <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axes</span></code></a>, an
area where points can be specified in terms of x-y coordinates (or theta-r
in a polar plot, x-y-z in a 3D plot, etc.). The simplest way of
creating a Figure with an Axes is using <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">pyplot.subplots</span></code></a>. We can then use
<a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axes.plot</span></code></a> to draw some data on the Axes, and <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.show.html#matplotlib.pyplot.show" title="matplotlib.pyplot.show"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">show</span></code></a> to display
the figure:</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">()</span> <span class="c1"># Create a figure containing a single Axes.</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">([</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">4</span><span class="p">],</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">4</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">])</span> <span class="c1"># Plot some data on the Axes.</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.show.html#matplotlib.pyplot.show" title="matplotlib.pyplot.show" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">show</span></a><span class="p">()</span> <span class="c1"># Show the figure.</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_001.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_001.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_001_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="quick start" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><p>Depending on the environment you are working in, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">plt.show()</span></code> can be left
out. This is for example the case with Jupyter notebooks, which
automatically show all figures created in a code cell.</p>
</section>
<section id="parts-of-a-figure">
<span id="figure-parts"></span><h2>Parts of a Figure<a class="headerlink" href="#parts-of-a-figure" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h2>
<p>Here are the components of a Matplotlib Figure.</p>
<img alt="../../_images/anatomy.png" loading="lazy" src="../../_images/anatomy.png" />
<section id="figure">
<h3><a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Figure</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#figure" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>The <strong>whole</strong> figure. The Figure keeps
track of all the child <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axes</span></code></a>, a group of
'special' Artists (titles, figure legends, colorbars, etc.), and
even nested subfigures.</p>
<p>Typically, you'll create a new Figure through one of the following
functions:</p>
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.figure.html#matplotlib.pyplot.figure" title="matplotlib.pyplot.figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">figure</span></a><span class="p">()</span> <span class="c1"># an empty figure with no Axes</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">()</span> <span class="c1"># a figure with a single Axes</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># a figure with a 2x2 grid of Axes</span>
<span class="c1"># a figure with one Axes on the left, and two on the right:</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplot_mosaic.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplot_mosaic" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplot_mosaic" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplot_mosaic</span></a><span class="p">([[</span><span class="s1">'left'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'right_top'</span><span class="p">],</span>
<span class="p">[</span><span class="s1">'left'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'right_bottom'</span><span class="p">]])</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p><a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">subplots()</span></code></a> and <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplot_mosaic.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplot_mosaic" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplot_mosaic"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">subplot_mosaic</span></code></a> are convenience functions
that additionally create Axes objects inside the Figure, but you can also
manually add Axes later on.</p>
<p>For more on Figures, including panning and zooming, see <a class="reference internal" href="figure/figure_intro.html#figure-intro"><span class="std std-ref">Introduction to Figures</span></a>.</p>
</section>
<section id="axes">
<h3><a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axes</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#axes" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>An Axes is an Artist attached to a Figure that contains a region for
plotting data, and usually includes two (or three in the case of 3D)
<a class="reference internal" href="../../api/axis_api.html#matplotlib.axis.Axis" title="matplotlib.axis.Axis"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axis</span></code></a> objects (be aware of the difference
between <strong>Axes</strong> and <strong>Axis</strong>) that provide ticks and tick labels to
provide scales for the data in the Axes. Each <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axes</span></code></a> also
has a title
(set via <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">set_title()</span></code></a>), an x-label (set via
<a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">set_xlabel()</span></code></a>), and a y-label set via
<a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel"><code class="xref py py-meth docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">set_ylabel()</span></code></a>).</p>
<p>The <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axes</span></code></a> methods are the primary interface for configuring
most parts of your plot (adding data, controlling axis scales and
limits, adding labels etc.).</p>
</section>
<section id="axis">
<h3><a class="reference internal" href="../../api/axis_api.html#matplotlib.axis.Axis" title="matplotlib.axis.Axis"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axis</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#axis" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>These objects set the scale and limits and generate ticks (the marks
on the Axis) and ticklabels (strings labeling the ticks). The location
of the ticks is determined by a <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/ticker_api.html#matplotlib.ticker.Locator" title="matplotlib.ticker.Locator"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Locator</span></code></a> object and the
ticklabel strings are formatted by a <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/ticker_api.html#matplotlib.ticker.Formatter" title="matplotlib.ticker.Formatter"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Formatter</span></code></a>. The
combination of the correct <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/ticker_api.html#matplotlib.ticker.Locator" title="matplotlib.ticker.Locator"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Locator</span></code></a> and <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/ticker_api.html#matplotlib.ticker.Formatter" title="matplotlib.ticker.Formatter"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Formatter</span></code></a> gives very fine
control over the tick locations and labels.</p>
</section>
<section id="artist">
<h3><a class="reference internal" href="../../api/artist_api.html#matplotlib.artist.Artist" title="matplotlib.artist.Artist"><code class="xref py py-class docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Artist</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#artist" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>Basically, everything visible on the Figure is an Artist (even
<a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Figure</span></code></a>, <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axes</span></code></a>, and <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/axis_api.html#matplotlib.axis.Axis" title="matplotlib.axis.Axis"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axis</span></code></a> objects). This includes
<a class="reference internal" href="../../api/text_api.html#matplotlib.text.Text" title="matplotlib.text.Text"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Text</span></code></a> objects, <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.lines.Line2D.html#matplotlib.lines.Line2D" title="matplotlib.lines.Line2D"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Line2D</span></code></a> objects, <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/collections_api.html#module-matplotlib.collections" title="matplotlib.collections"><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">collections</span></code></a> objects, <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.patches.Patch.html#matplotlib.patches.Patch" title="matplotlib.patches.Patch"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Patch</span></code></a>
objects, etc. When the Figure is rendered, all of the
Artists are drawn to the <strong>canvas</strong>. Most Artists are tied to an Axes; such
an Artist cannot be shared by multiple Axes, or moved from one to another.</p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="types-of-inputs-to-plotting-functions">
<span id="input-types"></span><h2>Types of inputs to plotting functions<a class="headerlink" href="#types-of-inputs-to-plotting-functions" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h2>
<p>Plotting functions expect <a class="reference external" href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.array.html#numpy.array" title="(in NumPy v2.2)"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">numpy.array</span></code></a> or <a class="reference external" href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ma.masked_array.html#numpy.ma.masked_array" title="(in NumPy v2.2)"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">numpy.ma.masked_array</span></code></a> as
input, or objects that can be passed to <a class="reference external" href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.asarray.html#numpy.asarray" title="(in NumPy v2.2)"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">numpy.asarray</span></code></a>.
Classes that are similar to arrays ('array-like') such as <a class="reference external" href="https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/index.html#module-pandas" title="(in pandas v2.2.3)"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">pandas</span></code></a>
data objects and <a class="reference external" href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.matrix.html#numpy.matrix" title="(in NumPy v2.2)"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">numpy.matrix</span></code></a> may not work as intended. Common convention
is to convert these to <a class="reference external" href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.array.html#numpy.array" title="(in NumPy v2.2)"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">numpy.array</span></code></a> objects prior to plotting.
For example, to convert a <a class="reference external" href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.matrix.html#numpy.matrix" title="(in NumPy v2.2)"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">numpy.matrix</span></code></a></p>
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">b</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">matrix</span><span class="p">([[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">],</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">4</span><span class="p">]])</span>
<span class="n">b_asarray</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">asarray</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">b</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Most methods will also parse a string-indexable object like a <em>dict</em>, a
<a class="reference external" href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/user/basics.rec.html#structured-arrays#noqa:E501">structured numpy array</a>, or a <a class="reference external" href="https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/reference/api/pandas.DataFrame.html#pandas.DataFrame" title="(in pandas v2.2.3)"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">pandas.DataFrame</span></code></a>. Matplotlib allows you
to provide the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">data</span></code> keyword argument and generate plots passing the
strings corresponding to the <em>x</em> and <em>y</em> variables.</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/random/generated/numpy.random.seed.html#numpy.random.seed" title="numpy.random.seed" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy-random sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">seed</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">19680801</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># seed the random number generator.</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">'a'</span><span class="p">:</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.arange.html#numpy.arange" title="numpy.arange" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arange</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="s1">'c'</span><span class="p">:</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/random/generated/numpy.random.randint.html#numpy.random.randint" title="numpy.random.randint" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy-random sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">randint</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="s1">'d'</span><span class="p">:</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/random/generated/numpy.random.randn.html#numpy.random.randn" title="numpy.random.randn" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy-random sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">randn</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">)}</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="s1">'b'</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="s1">'a'</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="mi">10</span> <span class="o">*</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/random/generated/numpy.random.randn.html#numpy.random.randn" title="numpy.random.randn" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy-random sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">randn</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="s1">'d'</span><span class="p">]</span> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ufunc.html#numpy.ufunc" title="numpy.ufunc" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">abs</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="s1">'d'</span><span class="p">])</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="mi">100</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">layout</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'constrained'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">scatter</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'a'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'b'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">c</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'c'</span><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">s</span></a><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'d'</span><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a><span class="o">=</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_xlabel</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'entry a'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_ylabel</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'entry b'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_002.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_002.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_002_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="quick start" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/></section>
<section id="coding-styles">
<span id="id1"></span><h2>Coding styles<a class="headerlink" href="#coding-styles" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h2>
<section id="the-explicit-and-the-implicit-interfaces">
<h3>The explicit and the implicit interfaces<a class="headerlink" href="#the-explicit-and-the-implicit-interfaces" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>As noted above, there are essentially two ways to use Matplotlib:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>Explicitly create Figures and Axes, and call methods on them (the
"object-oriented (OO) style").</p></li>
<li><p>Rely on pyplot to implicitly create and manage the Figures and Axes, and
use pyplot functions for plotting.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>See <a class="reference internal" href="figure/api_interfaces.html#api-interfaces"><span class="std std-ref">Matplotlib Application Interfaces (APIs)</span></a> for an explanation of the tradeoffs between the
implicit and explicit interfaces.</p>
<p>So one can use the OO-style</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.linspace.html#numpy.linspace" title="numpy.linspace" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">linspace</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># Sample data.</span>
<span class="c1"># Note that even in the OO-style, we use `.pyplot.figure` to create the Figure.</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">layout</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'constrained'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'linear'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># Plot some data on the Axes.</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'quadratic'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># Plot more data on the Axes...</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'cubic'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># ... and some more.</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_xlabel</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'x label'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># Add an x-label to the Axes.</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_ylabel</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'y label'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># Add a y-label to the Axes.</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_title</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"Simple Plot"</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># Add a title to the Axes.</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">legend</span></a><span class="p">()</span> <span class="c1"># Add a legend.</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_003.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_003.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_003_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="Simple Plot" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><p>or the pyplot-style:</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.linspace.html#numpy.linspace" title="numpy.linspace" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">linspace</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># Sample data.</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.figure.html#matplotlib.pyplot.figure" title="matplotlib.pyplot.figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">figure</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">layout</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'constrained'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.plot.html#matplotlib.pyplot.plot" title="matplotlib.pyplot.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'linear'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># Plot some data on the (implicit) Axes.</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.plot.html#matplotlib.pyplot.plot" title="matplotlib.pyplot.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'quadratic'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># etc.</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.plot.html#matplotlib.pyplot.plot" title="matplotlib.pyplot.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'cubic'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.xlabel.html#matplotlib.pyplot.xlabel" title="matplotlib.pyplot.xlabel" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xlabel</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'x label'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.ylabel.html#matplotlib.pyplot.ylabel" title="matplotlib.pyplot.ylabel" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">ylabel</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'y label'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.title.html#matplotlib.pyplot.title" title="matplotlib.pyplot.title" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">title</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"Simple Plot"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.legend.html#matplotlib.pyplot.legend" title="matplotlib.pyplot.legend" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">legend</span></a><span class="p">()</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_004.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_004.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_004_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="Simple Plot" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><p>(In addition, there is a third approach, for the case when embedding
Matplotlib in a GUI application, which completely drops pyplot, even for
figure creation. See the corresponding section in the gallery for more info:
<a class="reference internal" href="../../gallery/user_interfaces/index.html#user-interfaces"><span class="std std-ref">Embedding Matplotlib in graphical user interfaces</span></a>.)</p>
<p>Matplotlib's documentation and examples use both the OO and the pyplot
styles. In general, we suggest using the OO style, particularly for
complicated plots, and functions and scripts that are intended to be reused
as part of a larger project. However, the pyplot style can be very convenient
for quick interactive work.</p>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<p>You may find older examples that use the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">pylab</span></code> interface,
via <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">from</span> <span class="pre">pylab</span> <span class="pre">import</span> <span class="pre">*</span></code>. This approach is strongly deprecated.</p>
</div>
</section>
<section id="making-a-helper-functions">
<h3>Making a helper functions<a class="headerlink" href="#making-a-helper-functions" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>If you need to make the same plots over and over again with different data
sets, or want to easily wrap Matplotlib methods, use the recommended
signature function below.</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">def</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nf">my_plotter</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data2</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">param_dict</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="w"> </span><span class="sd">"""</span>
<span class="sd"> A helper function to make a graph.</span>
<span class="sd"> """</span>
<span class="n">out</span> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data2</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="o">**</span><span class="n">param_dict</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">out</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>which you would then use twice to populate two subplots:</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data2</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data3</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data4</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/random/generated/numpy.random.randn.html#numpy.random.randn" title="numpy.random.randn" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy-random sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">randn</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># make 4 random data sets</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">(</span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax1</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax2</span></a><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">my_plotter</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax1</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data2</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">'marker'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="s1">'x'</span><span class="p">})</span>
<span class="n">my_plotter</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax2</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data3</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data4</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="s1">'marker'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="s1">'o'</span><span class="p">})</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_005.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_005.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_005_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="quick start" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><p>Note that if you want to install these as a python package, or any other
customizations you could use one of the many templates on the web;
Matplotlib has one at <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib-extension-cookiecutter">mpl-cookiecutter</a></p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="styling-artists">
<h2>Styling Artists<a class="headerlink" href="#styling-artists" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h2>
<p>Most plotting methods have styling options for the Artists, accessible either
when a plotting method is called, or from a "setter" on the Artist. In the
plot below we manually set the <em>color</em>, <em>linewidth</em>, and <em>linestyle</em> of the
Artists created by <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">plot</span></code></a>, and we set the linestyle of the second line
after the fact with <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.lines.Line2D.html#matplotlib.lines.Line2D.set_linestyle" title="matplotlib.lines.Line2D.set_linestyle"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">set_linestyle</span></code></a>.</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">))</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.arange.html#numpy.arange" title="numpy.arange" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arange</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">))</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.cumsum.html#numpy.cumsum" title="numpy.cumsum" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">cumsum</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">color</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'blue'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">linewidth</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">linestyle</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'--'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.lines.Line2D.html#matplotlib.lines.Line2D" title="matplotlib.lines.Line2D" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-lines sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">l</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.cumsum.html#numpy.cumsum" title="numpy.cumsum" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">cumsum</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data2</span></a><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">color</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'orange'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">linewidth</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.lines.Line2D.html#matplotlib.lines.Line2D.set_linestyle" title="matplotlib.lines.Line2D.set_linestyle" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-lines sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">l</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_linestyle</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">':'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_006.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_006.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_006_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="quick start" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><section id="colors">
<h3>Colors<a class="headerlink" href="#colors" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>Matplotlib has a very flexible array of colors that are accepted for most
Artists; see <a class="reference internal" href="colors/colors.html#colors-def"><span class="std std-ref">allowable color definitions</span></a> for a
list of specifications. Some Artists will take multiple colors. i.e. for
a <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">scatter</span></code></a> plot, the edge of the markers can be different colors
from the interior:</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">))</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">scatter</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data2</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">s</span></a><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">facecolor</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'C0'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">edgecolor</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'k'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_007.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_007.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_007_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="quick start" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/></section>
<section id="linewidths-linestyles-and-markersizes">
<h3>Linewidths, linestyles, and markersizes<a class="headerlink" href="#linewidths-linestyles-and-markersizes" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>Line widths are typically in typographic points (1 pt = 1/72 inch) and
available for Artists that have stroked lines. Similarly, stroked lines
can have a linestyle. See the <a class="reference internal" href="../../gallery/lines_bars_and_markers/linestyles.html"><span class="doc">linestyles example</span></a>.</p>
<p>Marker size depends on the method being used. <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">plot</span></code></a> specifies
markersize in points, and is generally the "diameter" or width of the
marker. <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">scatter</span></code></a> specifies markersize as approximately
proportional to the visual area of the marker. There is an array of
markerstyles available as string codes (see <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/markers_api.html#module-matplotlib.markers" title="matplotlib.markers"><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">markers</span></code></a>), or
users can define their own <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.markers.MarkerStyle.html#matplotlib.markers.MarkerStyle" title="matplotlib.markers.MarkerStyle"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">MarkerStyle</span></code></a> (see
<a class="reference internal" href="../../gallery/lines_bars_and_markers/marker_reference.html"><span class="doc">Marker reference</span></a>):</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">))</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'o'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'data1'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data2</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'d'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'data2'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data3</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'v'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'data3'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data4</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'s'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'data4'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">legend</span></a><span class="p">()</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_008.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_008.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_008_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="quick start" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/></section>
</section>
<section id="labelling-plots">
<h2>Labelling plots<a class="headerlink" href="#labelling-plots" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h2>
<section id="axes-labels-and-text">
<h3>Axes labels and text<a class="headerlink" href="#axes-labels-and-text" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p><a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">set_xlabel</span></code></a>, <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">set_ylabel</span></code></a>, and <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">set_title</span></code></a> are used to
add text in the indicated locations (see <a class="reference internal" href="text/text_intro.html#text-intro"><span class="std std-ref">Text in Matplotlib</span></a>
for more discussion). Text can also be directly added to plots using
<a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.text.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.text" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.text"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">text</span></code></a>:</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#int" title="builtins.int" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-builtins sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">mu</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#int" title="builtins.int" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-builtins sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">sigma</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">115</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">15</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#int" title="builtins.int" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-builtins sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">mu</span></a> <span class="o">+</span> <a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#int" title="builtins.int" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-builtins sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">sigma</span></a> <span class="o">*</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/random/generated/numpy.random.randn.html#numpy.random.randn" title="numpy.random.randn" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy-random sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">randn</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">10000</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">layout</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'constrained'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="c1"># the histogram of the data</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">n</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">bins</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/container_api.html#matplotlib.container.BarContainer" title="matplotlib.container.BarContainer" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-container sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">patches</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.hist.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.hist" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.hist" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">hist</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">x</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">density</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">facecolor</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'C0'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">alpha</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.75</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_xlabel</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Length [cm]'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylabel" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_ylabel</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Probability'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_title</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Aardvark lengths</span><span class="se">\n</span><span class="s1"> (not really)'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.text.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.text" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.text" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">text</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">75</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">.025</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="sa">r</span><span class="s1">'$\mu=115,\ \sigma=15$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.axis.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.axis" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.axis" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">axis</span></a><span class="p">([</span><span class="mi">55</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">175</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">0.03</span><span class="p">])</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.grid.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.grid" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.grid" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">grid</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_009.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_009.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_009_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="Aardvark lengths (not really)" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><p>All of the <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.text.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.text" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.text"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">text</span></code></a> functions return a <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/text_api.html#matplotlib.text.Text" title="matplotlib.text.Text"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">matplotlib.text.Text</span></code></a>
instance. Just as with lines above, you can customize the properties by
passing keyword arguments into the text functions:</p>
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">t</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xlabel" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_xlabel</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'my data'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">fontsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">14</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">color</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'red'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>These properties are covered in more detail in
<a class="reference internal" href="text/text_props.html#text-props"><span class="std std-ref">Text properties and layout</span></a>.</p>
</section>
<section id="using-mathematical-expressions-in-text">
<h3>Using mathematical expressions in text<a class="headerlink" href="#using-mathematical-expressions-in-text" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>Matplotlib accepts TeX equation expressions in any text expression.
For example to write the expression <span class="math notranslate nohighlight">\(\sigma_i=15\)</span> in the title,
you can write a TeX expression surrounded by dollar signs:</p>
<div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_title" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_title</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="sa">r</span><span class="s1">'$\sigma_i=15$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>where the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">r</span></code> preceding the title string signifies that the string is a
<em>raw</em> string and not to treat backslashes as python escapes.
Matplotlib has a built-in TeX expression parser and
layout engine, and ships its own math fonts – for details see
<a class="reference internal" href="text/mathtext.html#mathtext"><span class="std std-ref">Writing mathematical expressions</span></a>. You can also use LaTeX directly to format
your text and incorporate the output directly into your display figures or
saved postscript – see <a class="reference internal" href="text/usetex.html#usetex"><span class="std std-ref">Text rendering with LaTeX</span></a>.</p>
</section>
<section id="annotations">
<h3>Annotations<a class="headerlink" href="#annotations" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>We can also annotate points on a plot, often by connecting an arrow pointing
to <em>xy</em>, to a piece of text at <em>xytext</em>:</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">))</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">t</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.arange.html#numpy.arange" title="numpy.arange" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arange</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">0.0</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">5.0</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">0.01</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">s</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ufunc.html#numpy.ufunc" title="numpy.ufunc" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">cos</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span> <span class="o">*</span> <a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#float" title="builtins.float" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-builtins sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">pi</span></a> <span class="o">*</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">t</span></a><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.lines.Line2D.html#matplotlib.lines.Line2D" title="matplotlib.lines.Line2D" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-lines sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">line</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">t</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">s</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">lw</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.annotate.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.annotate" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.annotate" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">annotate</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'local max'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">xy</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">xytext</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">1.5</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="n">arrowprops</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">dict</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">facecolor</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'black'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">shrink</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.05</span><span class="p">))</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylim.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylim" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_ylim" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_ylim</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_010.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_010.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_010_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="quick start" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><p>In this basic example, both <em>xy</em> and <em>xytext</em> are in data coordinates.
There are a variety of other coordinate systems one can choose -- see
<a class="reference internal" href="text/annotations.html#annotations-tutorial"><span class="std std-ref">Basic annotation</span></a> and <a class="reference internal" href="text/annotations.html#plotting-guide-annotation"><span class="std std-ref">Advanced annotation</span></a> for
details. More examples also can be found in
<a class="reference internal" href="../../gallery/text_labels_and_annotations/annotation_demo.html"><span class="doc">Annotate plots</span></a>.</p>
</section>
<section id="legends">
<h3>Legends<a class="headerlink" href="#legends" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>Often we want to identify lines or markers with a <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axes.legend</span></code></a>:</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">))</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.arange.html#numpy.arange" title="numpy.arange" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arange</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">)),</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'data1'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.arange.html#numpy.arange" title="numpy.arange" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arange</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data2</span></a><span class="p">)),</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data2</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'data2'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.arange.html#numpy.arange" title="numpy.arange" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arange</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data3</span></a><span class="p">)),</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data3</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'d'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'data3'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.legend" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">legend</span></a><span class="p">()</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_011.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_011.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_011_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="quick start" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><p>Legends in Matplotlib are quite flexible in layout, placement, and what
Artists they can represent. They are discussed in detail in
<a class="reference internal" href="axes/legend_guide.html#legend-guide"><span class="std std-ref">Legend guide</span></a>.</p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="axis-scales-and-ticks">
<h2>Axis scales and ticks<a class="headerlink" href="#axis-scales-and-ticks" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h2>
<p>Each Axes has two (or three) <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/axis_api.html#matplotlib.axis.Axis" title="matplotlib.axis.Axis"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Axis</span></code></a> objects representing the x- and
y-axis. These control the <em>scale</em> of the Axis, the tick <em>locators</em> and the
tick <em>formatters</em>. Additional Axes can be attached to display further Axis
objects.</p>
<section id="scales">
<h3>Scales<a class="headerlink" href="#scales" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>In addition to the linear scale, Matplotlib supplies non-linear scales,
such as a log-scale. Since log-scales are used so much there are also
direct methods like <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.loglog.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.loglog" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.loglog"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">loglog</span></code></a>, <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.semilogx.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.semilogx" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.semilogx"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">semilogx</span></code></a>, and
<a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.semilogy.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.semilogy" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.semilogy"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">semilogy</span></code></a>. There are a number of scales (see
<a class="reference internal" href="../../gallery/scales/scales.html"><span class="doc">Scales overview</span></a> for other examples). Here we set the scale
manually:</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">layout</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'constrained'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">xdata</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.arange.html#numpy.arange" title="numpy.arange" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arange</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">))</span> <span class="c1"># make an ordinal for this</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">10</span><span class="o">**</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">xdata</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_yscale</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'log'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">xdata</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_012.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_012.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_012_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="quick start" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><p>The scale sets the mapping from data values to spacing along the Axis. This
happens in both directions, and gets combined into a <em>transform</em>, which
is the way that Matplotlib maps from data coordinates to Axes, Figure, or
screen coordinates. See <a class="reference internal" href="artists/transforms_tutorial.html#transforms-tutorial"><span class="std std-ref">Transformations Tutorial</span></a>.</p>
</section>
<section id="tick-locators-and-formatters">
<h3>Tick locators and formatters<a class="headerlink" href="#tick-locators-and-formatters" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>Each Axis has a tick <em>locator</em> and <em>formatter</em> that choose where along the
Axis objects to put tick marks. A simple interface to this is
<a class="reference internal" href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xticks.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xticks" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.set_xticks"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">set_xticks</span></code></a>:</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">layout</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'constrained'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">xdata</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_title</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Automatic ticks'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">xdata</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data1</span></a><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_xticks</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.arange.html#numpy.arange" title="numpy.arange" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arange</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">30</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="s1">'zero'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'30'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'sixty'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'90'</span><span class="p">])</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_yticks</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mf">1.5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">1.5</span><span class="p">])</span> <span class="c1"># note that we don't need to specify labels</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">axs</span></a><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_title</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Manual ticks'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_013.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_013.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_013_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="Automatic ticks, Manual ticks" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><p>Different scales can have different locators and formatters; for instance
the log-scale above uses <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/ticker_api.html#matplotlib.ticker.LogLocator" title="matplotlib.ticker.LogLocator"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">LogLocator</span></code></a> and <a class="reference internal" href="../../api/ticker_api.html#matplotlib.ticker.LogFormatter" title="matplotlib.ticker.LogFormatter"><code class="xref py py-obj docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">LogFormatter</span></code></a>. See
<a class="reference internal" href="../../gallery/ticks/tick-locators.html"><span class="doc">Tick locators</span></a> and
<a class="reference internal" href="../../gallery/ticks/tick-formatters.html"><span class="doc">Tick formatters</span></a> for other formatters and
locators and information for writing your own.</p>
</section>
<section id="plotting-dates-and-strings">
<h3>Plotting dates and strings<a class="headerlink" href="#plotting-dates-and-strings" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>
<p>Matplotlib can handle plotting arrays of dates and arrays of strings, as
well as floating point numbers. These get special locators and formatters
as appropriate. For dates:</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="kn">from</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nn">matplotlib.dates</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="kn">import</span> <a href="../../api/dates_api.html#matplotlib.dates.ConciseDateFormatter" title="matplotlib.dates.ConciseDateFormatter" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-dates sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class"><span class="n">ConciseDateFormatter</span></a>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">layout</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'constrained'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">dates</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.arange.html#numpy.arange" title="numpy.arange" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arange</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/arrays.scalars.html#numpy.datetime64" title="numpy.datetime64" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">datetime64</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'2021-11-15'</span><span class="p">),</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/arrays.scalars.html#numpy.datetime64" title="numpy.datetime64" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">datetime64</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'2021-12-25'</span><span class="p">),</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/arrays.scalars.html#numpy.timedelta64" title="numpy.timedelta64" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">timedelta64</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'h'</span><span class="p">))</span>
<a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.cumsum.html#numpy.cumsum" title="numpy.cumsum" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">cumsum</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/random/generated/numpy.random.randn.html#numpy.random.randn" title="numpy.random.randn" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy-random sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">randn</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">dates</span></a><span class="p">)))</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">dates</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/generated/numpy.ndarray.html#numpy.ndarray" title="numpy.ndarray" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">data</span></a><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axis.Axis.set_major_formatter.html#matplotlib.axis.Axis.set_major_formatter" title="matplotlib.axis.Axis.set_major_formatter" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axis sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xaxis</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_major_formatter</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="../../api/dates_api.html#matplotlib.dates.ConciseDateFormatter" title="matplotlib.dates.ConciseDateFormatter" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-dates sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class"><span class="n">ConciseDateFormatter</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axis.Axis.get_major_locator.html#matplotlib.axis.Axis.get_major_locator" title="matplotlib.axis.Axis.get_major_locator" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axis sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">xaxis</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">get_major_locator</span></a><span class="p">()))</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_014.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_014.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_014_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="quick start" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><p>For more information see the date examples
(e.g. <a class="reference internal" href="../../gallery/text_labels_and_annotations/date.html"><span class="doc">Date tick labels</span></a>)</p>
<p>For strings, we get categorical plotting (see:
<a class="reference internal" href="../../gallery/lines_bars_and_markers/categorical_variables.html"><span class="doc">Plotting categorical variables</span></a>).</p>
<div class="highlight-Python notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure" title="matplotlib.figure.Figure" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-figure sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">fig</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">ax</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.subplots.html#matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" title="matplotlib.pyplot.subplots" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-pyplot sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">plt</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subplots</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.7</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="n">layout</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'constrained'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#list" title="builtins.list" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-builtins sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">categories</span></a> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="s1">'turnips'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'rutabaga'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'cucumber'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'pumpkins'</span><span class="p">]</span>
<a href="../../api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.bar.html#matplotlib.axes.Axes.bar" title="matplotlib.axes.Axes.bar" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-matplotlib-axes sphx-glr-backref-type-py-method"><span class="n">ax</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">bar</span></a><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#list" title="builtins.list" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-builtins sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">categories</span></a><span class="p">,</span> <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/random/generated/numpy.random.rand.html#numpy.random.rand" title="numpy.random.rand" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-numpy-random sphx-glr-backref-type-py-function"><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">rand</span></a><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#list" title="builtins.list" class="sphx-glr-backref-module-builtins sphx-glr-backref-type-py-class sphx-glr-backref-instance"><span class="n">categories</span></a><span class="p">)))</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<img src="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_015.png" srcset="../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_015.png, ../../_images/sphx_glr_quick_start_015_2_00x.png 2.00x" alt="quick start" class = "sphx-glr-single-img"/><p>One caveat about categorical plotting is that some methods of parsing
text files return a list of strings, even if the strings all represent
numbers or dates. If you pass 1000 strings, Matplotlib will think you
meant 1000 categories and will add 1000 ticks to your plot!</p>
</section>
<section id="additional-axis-objects">
<h3>Additional Axis objects<a class="headerlink" href="#additional-axis-objects" title="Link to this heading">#</a></h3>