Question

I am using pylab in matplotlib to create a plot and save the plot to an image file. However, when I save the image using pylab.savefig( image_name ), I find that the SIZE image saved is the same as the image that is shown when I use pylab.show().

As it happens, I have a lot of data in the plot and when I am using pylab.show(), I have to maximize the window before I can see all of the plot correctly, and the xlabel tickers don’t superimpose on each other.

Is there anyway that I can programmatically ‘maximize’ the window before saving the image to file? – at the moment, I am only getting the ‘default’ window size image, which results in the x axis labels being superimposed on one another.

Answer 1

You set the size on initialization:

fig2 = matplotlib.pyplot.figure(figsize=(8.0, 5.0)) # in inches!

Edit:

If the problem is with x-axis ticks – You can set them “manually”:

fig2.add_subplot(111).set_xticks(arange(1,3,0.5)) # You can actually compute the interval You need - and substitute here

And so on with other aspects of Your plot. You can configure it all. Here’s an example:

from numpy import arange
import matplotlib
# import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.pyplot
# import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

x1 = [1,2,3]
y1 = [4,5,6]
x2 = [1,2,3]
y2 = [5,5,5]

# initialization
fig2 = matplotlib.pyplot.figure(figsize=(8.0, 5.0)) # The size of the figure is specified as (width, height) in inches

# lines:
l1 = fig2.add_subplot(111).plot(x1,y1, label=r"Text $formula$", "r-", lw=2)
l2 = fig2.add_subplot(111).plot(x2,y2, label=r"$legend2$" ,"g--", lw=3)
fig2.add_subplot(111).legend((l1,l2), loc=0)

# axes:
fig2.add_subplot(111).grid(True)
fig2.add_subplot(111).set_xticks(arange(1,3,0.5))
fig2.add_subplot(111).axis(xmin=3, xmax=6) # there're also ymin, ymax
fig2.add_subplot(111).axis([0,4,3,6]) # all!
fig2.add_subplot(111).set_xlim([0,4])
fig2.add_subplot(111).set_ylim([3,6])

# labels:
fig2.add_subplot(111).set_xlabel(r"x $2^2$", fontsize=15, color = "r")
fig2.add_subplot(111).set_ylabel(r"y $2^2$")
fig2.add_subplot(111).set_title(r"title $6^4$")
fig2.add_subplot(111).text(2, 5.5, r"an equation: $E=mc^2$", fontsize=15, color = "y")
fig2.add_subplot(111).text(3, 2, unicode('f\374r', 'latin-1'))

# saving:
fig2.savefig("fig2.png")

So – what exactly do You want to be configured?