How to Change Legend Font Size in Matplotlib?

Matplotlib is a library for creating interactive visualizations in Python. The functions in matplotlib make it work like MATLAB software. The legend() method in matplotlib describes the elements in the plot. In this article, we are going to Change Legend Font Size in Matplotlib.

Syntax:

matplotlib.pyplot.legend(*args, **kwargs)

It can be done in different ways:

• To use font size as a parameter.
• To use prop keyword to change the font size in legend.
• To use rcParams Method.

Method 1:

Example 1 and example 2 clearly differentiate changes between default font size and changed the font size in legend.

Example 1: Default font size of the text in the legend

Python3

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

plt.figure(figsize = (8, 4))

x = ['Arjun', 'Bharath', 'Raju', 'Seeta', 'Ram']
y = [5, 7, 8, 4, 6]

plt.bar(x, y, color = 'g')

plt.xlabel('Students', fontsize = 18)
plt.ylabel('Marks', fontsize = 18)

#Default fontsize of text using legend
plt.legend(['Marks scored'])

plt.show()

Output:

Example 2: Changing the font size of the text in legend

Python3

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

plt.figure(figsize = (8, 4))

x = ['Arjun', 'Bharath', 'Raju', 'Seeta', 'Ram']

y = [5, 7, 8, 4, 6]

plt.bar(x, y, color = 'g')

plt.xlabel('Students', fontsize = 18)
plt.ylabel('Marks', fontsize = 18)

#Changing text fontsize in legend
plt.legend(['Marks scored'], fontsize = 17)

plt.show()

Output:

The above example changes the font size of items in legend. The font size parameter can have integer or float values. It also accepts the string sizes like: ‘xx-small’, ‘x-small’, ‘small’, ‘medium’, ‘large’, ‘x-large’, ‘xx-large’.

Method 2:  The prop keyword is used to change the font size property. It is used in matplotlib as:

matplotlib.pyplot.legend(*args… , prop = {‘size’ : 20})

Example 3: Using a prop keyword for changing the font size in legend.

Python3

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.figure(figsize = (8 , 5))

plt.plot([1, 2, 4, 8, 30, 1])
plt.plot([1, 6, 13, 20, 38, 1])
plt.plot([1, 4, 8, 14, 20, 1])
plt.plot([1, 3, 4, 5, 10, 1])

#Using prop keyword in legend to change font size
plt.legend(['blue', 'orange', 'green', 'red'],
           prop = {'size' : 20},
           loc = 'upper left', shadow = True,
           facecolor = 'yellow')

plt.show()

Output:

Method 3:

The matplotlib.rcparams is a dictionary-like variable that has all the configuration settings to customize default parameters. The matplotlib.rc() command is used to change multiple settings with the use of keyword arguments.

Syntax:

matplotlib.pyplot.rc(group, **kwargs)

For Example, 

matplotlib.pyplot.rc ('lines', linewidth = 5, color = 'g')

Example 4:

Python3

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from pylab import *

x = np.linspace(0, (2*np.pi), endpoint = True)

xlim(x.min(), x.max())

xticks([0, np.pi/2, np.pi, (3*np.pi/2), (2*np.pi)],
       [r'$0$', r'$+\pi/2$', r'$+\pi$', r'$3/2\pi$', r'$2\pi$'])

ylim(-1, 0, 1)
yticks([-1, 0, +1],
       [r'$-1$', r'$0$', r'$+1$'])

plt.plot(x, np.sin(x), label = "sin(x)")
plt.plot(x, np.cos(x), label = "cos(x)")

plt.title('Trigonometric Functions', fontsize = 22)

plt.xlabel('Angles', fontsize = 18)
plt.ylabel('Values', fontsize = 18)

plt.legend(loc = 'upper center')

plt.rc('legend', fontsize = 16)

#plt.grid()
plt.tight_layout()

plt.show()

Output: