Question

I have a pyplot graph where each of the data points is labeled with an arrow pointing at the data point, and I have it formatted so that the data is at a constant offset from the data point it is annotating. This works fine until I get too close to the edge of figure with one of my data points and the annotation is chopped off. I am hoping that there is a way to format my annotation so that it automatically positions its self off of my data and yet stays in my figure. Below is a snippet of how I am formatting my annotation.

for label, x, y in zip(bagOlabels, time, height):
    ax.annotate(
                label,
                xy = (x,y), xytext = (50,-20),
                textcoords = 'offset points', ha = 'right', va = 'top',
                arrowprops = dict(arrowstyle = '->', 
                connectionstyle = 'arc3,rad=0')
                )

The xytext = (50,-20) is where I set the label offset. I have been doing digging, but I haven’t found what I am looking for yet. If you have any insights into how this could be accomplished I would love to hear it.

Thanks.

Answer 1

There are some strategies that you can try:

1. If the point is in the right half of the plot, put the annotation with negative offset:

   for label, x, y in zip(bagOlabels, time, height):
       offset = (50, 20)
       if x > mid_x:
          offset = (-50, 20)  # (-50, -20) could be better
   
   ax.annotate(...)
   

2. Enlarge the plot so all the annotations fit in the plot.

It is possible that in the first case, the annotations overlap each other.

UPDATE:

The method get_xlim returns the limits of your plot in the x-axis:

x = range(0, 100)
y = map(lambda x: x*x, x)

fig = pyplot.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(1, 1, 1)
ax1.plot(x, y, 'r.', x, y, 'r-')
xlim = ax1.get_xlim()