How to set constant figsize in matplotlib

user_10342778 0
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I am doing some experimentations with plotting and I like big plots i.e plots on a big picture. So I have to manually do

plt.figure(figsize=(15,8))
myplotcode

every time. I want to know is there anyway that I set this figsize as constant in starting and do not use it manaully everytime.

Thanks

seaborn data-visualization matplotlib python
2 Answers

In MatplotLib to can edit the base parameters, which is arranged in a dict form. You can actually change every default parameter. In your case it would like this:

rcParams["figure.figsize"] = [15, 8]

For more parameters you can change, you can check out the documentation.

user_88681080

If you want to set the figure size once and forever you can store you preferences (not only the figure size) in an initialization file, named matplotlibrc

On linux/Unix like systems

$ mkdirhier ~/.config/matplotlib
$ echo "figure.figsize     : 10, 7" >> /home/boffi/.config/matplotlib/matplotlibrc
$ python
...
>>> import matplotlib.pyplot
>>> matplotlib.pyplot.figure()
<Figure size 1000x700 with 0 Axes> 
>>> # the above size is in pixels, at the default of 100 dpi
>>>

To know the location of the configuration directory you can do

$ python
...
>>> import matplotlib
>>> matplotlib.get_configdir()
'/home/user1001/.config/matplotlib'
>>>

An initialization file is good for you, but if you want to distribute your script to other people, with different initialization files, well it's no more so good!

A possible remedy is to go with Matplotlib's style sheets that allows you to load all of your tweakings with a single statement

plt.style.use('./mystyle.mplstyle')

and also the possibility of using a style as a context manager

plt.plot(...)         # default style
with plt.style.context('./mystyle.mplstyle'):
     plt.plot(...)    # your style

so that you can distribute your style sheet along with your script and your user will not be affected by a global modification of the defaults.

user_27493970
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