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How to change the size of figures drawn with matplotlib?

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When working with Matplotlib in Python, the appearance and clarity of your visualizations play a crucial role in conveying information effectively. Matplotlib provides straightforward methods to change figsize in matplotlib either globally for all plots or individually for specific visualizations, granting users the flexibility to optimize their plots for various applications and contexts. In this article, we will see how to change the size of the Figures In Matplotlib in Python.

How to use it for plotting?

The main purpose of Matplotlib is to create a figure representing data. The use of visualizing data is to tell stories by curating data into a form easier to understand, highlighting the trends and outliers. We can populate the figure with all different types of data, including axes, a graph plot, a geometric shape, etc. “When” we plot graphs we may want to set the size of a figure to a certain size. You may want to make the figure wider in size, taller in height, etc.

Increase or Decrease the Plot Size in Matplotlib 

This can be achieved by an attribute of Matplotlib known as figsize. The figsize attribute allows us to specify the width and height of a figure in-unit inches.

Python matplotlib.pyplot figsize Syntax

 Syntax: plt.figure(figsize=(width, height))

Parameters:

  • width: The width of the figure in inches.
  • height: The height of the figure in inches.

The figsize attribute is a parameter of the function figure(). It is an optional attribute, by default the figure has the dimensions as (6.4, 4.8). This is a standard plot where the attribute is not mentioned in the function. 

Change Figsize in Matplotlib

Below are the examples by which we can change figsize in matplotlib:

Example 1: Set the Figure Size Argument

In this example, a Matplotlib figure with dimensions 6 inches in width and 3 inches in height is created and used to plot the linear equation �=2�y=2x. The resulting graph displays the plotted points of this equation.

Python3




# We start by importing matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
# Plotting a figure of width 6 and height 3
plt_1 = plt.figure(figsize=(6, 3))
 
# Let's plot the equation y=2*x
x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
 
# y = [2,4,6,8,10]
y = [x*2 for x in x]
 
# plt.plot() specifies the arguments for x-axis
# and y-axis to be plotted
plt.plot(x, y)
 
# To show this figure object, we use the line,
# fig.show()
plt.show()


Output:

This works if you’re using a python IDE other than Jupiter notebooks. If you are using  Jupiter notebooks, then you would not use, plt.show(). Instead, you would specify in the Code right after importing matplotlib, %matplotlib inline.

Example 2: Change Figure Size in Matplotlib

To see the dynamic nature of figure sizing in Matplotlib, now we have to create a figure with the dimensions inverted. The height will now be double the size of the width.

Python3




# We start by importing matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
# Plotting a figure of width 3 and height 6
plt_1 = plt.figure(figsize=(3, 6))
 
# Let's plot the equation y=2*x
x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
 
# y = [2,4,6,8,10]
y = [x*2 for x in x]
 
# plt.plot() specifies the arguments for
# x-axis and y-axis to be plotted
plt.plot(x, y)
 
# To show this figure object, we use the line,
# fig.show()
plt.show()


Output:

Example 3: Set the Height and Width of a Figure in Matplotlib

In this example, we will see that instead of simply using figsize we can also set the height and width of the plot using set_figheight() and set_figwidth() functions.

Python3




# We start by importing matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
# Plotting a figure of width 10 and height 5
fig = plt.figure()
 
fig.set_figheight(5)
fig.set_figwidth(10)
 
# Let's plot the equation y=2*x
x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
 
# y = [2,4,6,8,10]
y = [x*2 for x in x]
 
# plt.plot() specifies the arguments for x-axis
# and y-axis to be plotted
plt.plot(x, y)
 
# To show this figure object, we use the line,
# fig.show()
plt.show()


Output:

Example 4: Set the Height and Width of a Figure in Inches

Here, we will see another example of setting figure size in inches using set_size_inches.

Python3




# We start by importing matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
# Plotting a figure of width 5 and height 5
fig = plt.figure()
 
fig.set_size_inches(5, 5)
 
# Let's plot the equation y=2*x
x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
 
# y = [2,4,6,8,10]
y = [x*2 for x in x]
 
# plt.plot() specifies the arguments for x-axis
# and y-axis to be plotted
plt.plot(x, y)
 
# To show this figure object, we use the line,
# fig.show()
plt.show()


Output:



Last Updated : 09 Jan, 2024
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