pyplot axes labels for subplots

Question

I have the following plot   import matplotlib pyplot as plt  fig2   plt figure   ax3   fig2 add subplot 2 1 1  ax4   fig2 add subplot 2 1 2  ax4 loglog x1  y1  ax3 loglog x2  y2  ax3 set ylabel  hello     I want to be able to create axes labels and titles not just for each of the two subplots  but also common labels that span both subplots   For example  since both plots have identical axes  I only need one set of x and y- axes labels   I do want different titles for each subplot though   I tried a few things but none of them worked right

User · Answer

One simple way using subplots  import matplotlib pyplot as plt  fig  axes   plt subplots 3  4  sharex True  sharey True    add a big axes  hide frame fig add subplot 111  frameon False    hide tick and tick label of the big axes plt tick params labelcolor  none   top False  bottom False  left False  right False  plt grid False  plt xlabel  quot common X quot   plt ylabel  quot common Y quot

User · Answer

Wen-wei Liao s answer is good if you are not trying to export vector graphics or that you have set up your matplotlib backends to ignore colorless axes  otherwise the hidden axes would show up in the exported graphic   My answer suplabel here is similar to the fig suptitle which uses the fig text function   Therefore there is no axes artist being created and made colorless  However  if you try to call it multiple times you will get text added on top of each other  as fig suptitle does too    Wen-wei Liao s answer doesn t  because fig add subplot 111  will return the same Axes object if it is already created   My function can also be called after the plots have been created   def suplabel axis label label prop None               labelpad 5               ha  center  va  center            Add super ylabel or xlabel to the figure     Similar to matplotlib suptitle     axis       - string   x  or  y      label      - string     label prop - keyword dictionary for Text     labelpad   - padding from the axis  default  5      ha         - horizontal alignment  default   center       va         - vertical alignment  default   center               fig   pylab gcf       xmin          ymin          for ax in fig axes          xmin append ax get position   xmin          ymin append ax get position   ymin      xmin ymin   min xmin  min ymin      dpi   fig dpi     if axis lower       y           rotation 90          x   xmin-float labelpad  dpi         y   0 5     elif axis lower       x           rotation   0          x   0 5         y   ymin - float labelpad  dpi     else          raise Exception  Unexpected axis  x or y       if label prop is None           label prop   dict       pylab text x y label rotation rotation                 transform fig transFigure                 ha ha va va                   label prop

User · Answer

plt setp   will do the job     plot something fig  axs   plt subplots 3 3  figsize  15  8   sharex True  sharey True  for i  ax in enumerate axs flat       ax scatter  np random normal size  2 200        ax set title f Title  i       set labels plt setp axs -1      xlabel  x axis label   plt setp axs    0   ylabel  y axis label

User · Answer

list loss and acc are your data fig   plt figure   ax1   fig add subplot 121  ax2   fig add subplot 122   ax1 plot iteration1  loss  ax2 plot iteration2  acc   ax1 set title  Training Loss   ax2 set title  Training Accuracy    ax1 set xlabel  Iteration   ax1 set ylabel  Loss    ax2 set xlabel  Iteration   ax2 set ylabel  Accuracy

User · Answer

You can create a big subplot that covers the two subplots and then set the common labels  import random import matplotlib pyplot as plt  x   range 1  101  y1    random randint 1  100  for   in range len x    y2    random randint 1  100  for   in range len x     fig   plt figure   ax   fig add subplot 111       The big subplot ax1   fig add subplot 211  ax2   fig add subplot 212     Turn off axis lines and ticks of the big subplot ax spines  top   set color  none   ax spines  bottom   set color  none   ax spines  left   set color  none   ax spines  right   set color  none   ax tick params labelcolor  w   top False  bottom False  left False  right False   ax1 loglog x  y1  ax2 loglog x  y2     Set common labels ax set xlabel  common xlabel   ax set ylabel  common ylabel    ax1 set title  ax1 title   ax2 set title  ax2 title    plt savefig  common labels png   dpi 300    Another way is using fig text   to set the locations of the common labels directly  import random import matplotlib pyplot as plt  x   range 1  101  y1    random randint 1  100  for   in range len x    y2    random randint 1  100  for   in range len x     fig   plt figure   ax1   fig add subplot 211  ax2   fig add subplot 212   ax1 loglog x  y1  ax2 loglog x  y2     Set common labels fig text 0 5  0 04   common xlabel   ha  center   va  center   fig text 0 06  0 5   common ylabel   ha  center   va  center   rotation  vertical    ax1 set title  ax1 title   ax2 set title  ax2 title    plt savefig  common labels text png   dpi 300

User · Answer

The methods in the other answers will not work properly when the yticks are large  The ylabel will either overlap with ticks  be clipped on the left or completely invisible outside of the figure    I ve modified Hagne s answer so it works with more than 1 column of subplots  for both xlabel and ylabel  and it shifts the plot to keep the ylabel visible in the figure   def set shared ylabel a  xlabel  ylabel  labelpad   0 01  figleftpad 0 05          Set a y label shared by multiple axes     Parameters     ----------     a  list of axes     ylabel  string     labelpad  float         Sets the padding between ticklabels and axis label         f   a 0 0  get figure       f canvas draw    sets f canvas renderer needed below        get the center position for all plots     top   a 0 0  get position   y1     bottom   a -1 -1  get position   y0        get the coordinates of the left side of the tick labels     x0   1     x1   1     for at row in a          at   at row 0          at set ylabel       just to make sure we don t and up with multiple labels         bboxes      at yaxis get ticklabel extents f canvas renderer          bboxes   bboxes inverse transformed f transFigure          xt   bboxes x0         if xt  lt  x0              x0   xt             x1   bboxes x1     tick label left   x0        shrink plot on left to prevent ylabel clipping        x1 - tick label left  is the x coordinate of right end of tick label        basically how much padding is needed to fit tick labels in the figure       figleftpad is additional padding to fit the ylabel     plt subplots adjust left  x1 - tick label left    figleftpad         set position of label         note that  figleftpad-labelpad  refers to the middle of the ylabel     a -1 -1  set ylabel ylabel      a -1 -1  yaxis set label coords figleftpad-labelpad  bottom   top  2  transform f transFigure         set xlabel     y0   1     for at in axes -1           at set xlabel        just to make sure we don t and up with multiple labels         bboxes      at xaxis get ticklabel extents fig canvas renderer          bboxes   bboxes inverse transformed fig transFigure          yt   bboxes y0         if yt  lt  y0              y0   yt     tick label bottom   y0      axes -1  -1  set xlabel xlabel      axes -1  -1  xaxis set label coords  left   right    2  tick label bottom - labelpad  transform fig transFigure    It works for the following example  while Hagne s answer won t draw ylabel  since it s outside of the canvas  and KYC s ylabel overlaps with the tick labels   import matplotlib pyplot as plt import itertools  fig  axes   plt subplots 3  4  sharey  row   sharex True  squeeze False  fig subplots adjust hspace  5  for i  a in enumerate itertools chain  axes        a plot  0 4  i    0 4  i       a set title i  set shared ylabel axes   common X    common Y   plt show       Alternatively  if you are fine with colorless axis  I ve modified Julian Chen s solution so ylabel won t overlap with tick labels    Basically  we just have to set ylims of the colorless so it matches the largest ylims of the subplots so the colorless tick labels sets the correct location for the ylabel   Again  we have to shrink the plot to prevent clipping  Here I ve hard coded the amount to shrink  but you can play around to find a number that works for you or calculate it like in the method above   import matplotlib pyplot as plt import itertools  fig  axes   plt subplots 3  4  sharey  row   sharex True  squeeze False  fig subplots adjust hspace  5  miny   maxy   0 for i  a in enumerate itertools chain  axes        a plot  0 4  i    0 4  i       a set title i      miny   min miny  a get ylim   0       maxy   max maxy  a get ylim   1      add a big axes  hide frame   set ylim to match the largest range of any subplot ax invis   fig add subplot 111  frameon False  ax invis set ylim  miny  maxy      hide tick and tick label of the big axis plt tick params labelcolor  none   top False  bottom False  left False  right False  plt xlabel  common X   plt ylabel  common Y      shrink plot to prevent clipping plt subplots adjust left 0 15  plt show

User · Answer

Here is a solution where you set the ylabel of one of the plots and adjust the position of it so it is centered vertically  This way you avoid problems mentioned by KYC   import numpy as np import matplotlib pyplot as plt  def set shared ylabel a  ylabel  labelpad   0 01          Set a y label shared by multiple axes     Parameters     ----------     a  list of axes     ylabel  string     labelpad  float         Sets the padding between ticklabels and axis label         f   a 0  get figure       f canvas draw    sets f canvas renderer needed below        get the center position for all plots     top   a 0  get position   y1     bottom   a -1  get position   y0        get the coordinates of the left side of the tick labels      x0   1     for at in a          at set ylabel       just to make sure we don t and up with multiple labels         bboxes      at yaxis get ticklabel extents f canvas renderer          bboxes   bboxes inverse transformed f transFigure          xt   bboxes x0         if xt  lt  x0              x0   xt     tick label left   x0        set position of label     a -1  set ylabel ylabel      a -1  yaxis set label coords tick label left - labelpad  bottom   top  2  transform f transFigure   length   100 x   np linspace 0 100  length  y1   np random random length    1000 y2   np random random length   f a   plt subplots 2  sharex True  gridspec kw   hspace  0   a 0  plot x  y1  a 1  plot x  y2  set shared ylabel a   shared y label  a  u

[python] pyplot axes labels for subplots

Examples related to python

Examples related to matplotlib

Examples related to label

Examples related to subplot

Examples related to axes