How to Hide Axis Text Ticks or Tick Labels in Matplotlib?
Prerequisites: Matplotlib
The Matplotlib library by default shows the axis ticks and tick labels. Sometimes it is necessary to hide these axis ticks and tick labels. This article discusses some methods by which this can be done.
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Functions used:
- xticks(ticks=None, labels=None, **kwargs)– used to get and set the current tick locations and labels of the x-axis.
- yticks(ticks=None, labels=None, **kwargs)- used to get and set the current tick locations and labels of the y-axis.
- set_visible(boolean)- sets visibility
Hiding tick labels
Method 1:
The functions xticks() and yticks() are used to denote positions using which a data point is supposed to be displayed. They take a list as argument. Thus, axis text ticks or tick labels can be disabled by setting the xticks and yticks to an empty list as shown below:
plt.xticks([]) plt.yticks([])
Example 1:
Python3
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt x1 = [5, 8, 10]y1 = [12, 16, 8]x2 = [6, 9, 12]y2 = [14, 10, 8] plt.plot(x1, y1, 'g', linewidth=7)plt.plot(x2, y2, 'b', linewidth=7) plt.title('Disabling xticks and yticks', fontsize=20) plt.xlabel('X axis', fontsize=15)plt.ylabel('Y axis', fontsize=15) # disabling xticks by Setting xticks to an empty listplt.xticks([]) # disabling yticks by setting yticks to an empty listplt.yticks([]) plt.show() |
Output:
Method 2:
By default, in matplotlib library, plots are plotted on a white background. Therefore, setting the color of tick labels as white can make the axis tick labels as hidden. For this only color attribute needs to passed with w (represents white) as a value to xticks() and yticks() function. Implementation is given below:
Example 2:
Python3
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt plt.plot([5, 10, 20], [20, 10, 50], color='g') plt.xlabel("X Label")plt.ylabel("Y Label") # xticks color whiteplt.xticks(color='w') # yticks color whiteplt.yticks(color='w') plt.show() |
Output:
Method 3:
Null Locator is a type of tick locator which makes the axis ticks and tick labels disappear. Simply passing NullLocator() function will be enough.
Example3:
Python3
import numpy as npimport matplotlib.ticker as ticker ax = plt.axes() x = np.random.rand(100)ax.plot(x, color='g') ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(ticker.NullLocator())ax.yaxis.set_major_locator(ticker.NullLocator()) |
Output:
Method 4:
Observe the syntax of xticks() and yticks() carefully, if even just a space is passed to them along with the data the output will be our desired result.
Example 4:
Python3
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt x = [5, 8, 15, 20, 30]y = [15, 10, 8, 20, 15]plt.plot(x, y, color='g', linewidth=5) # x-label as blankplt.xticks(x, " ") # y-label as blankplt.yticks(y, " ") plt.show() |
Output:
Method 5:
This method is just a modification of method 4. Instead of passing an empty string, assign label as space in the functions itself.
Example 5:
Python3
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt x = [5, 8, 15, 20, 30]y = [15, 10, 8, 20, 15]plt.plot(x, y, color='g', linewidth=5) plt.xticks(x, labels=" ")plt.yticks(y, labels=" ") plt.show() |
Output:
Method 6:
Using set_visibile() we can also set visibility of tick labels as False, that will not make them appear in our plot. This method hides labels as well as ticks, so if some requirement needs ticks to be displayed this isn’t the option to for, multiple methods shown above would stand ideal though.
Example 6:
Python3
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt x = [5, 8, 15, 20, 30]y = [15, 10, 8, 20, 15]plt.plot(x, y, color='g', linewidth=5) # getting current axesa = plt.gca() # set visibility of x-axis as Falsexax = a.axes.get_xaxis()xax = xax.set_visible(False) # set visibility of y-axis as Falseyax = a.axes.get_yaxis()yax = yax.set_visible(False) plt.show() |
Output:
