How to use (new style) string formatting in matplotlib figure text

Question

Is it possible to use (new style) python string formatting with matplotlib's figure.text() command?

I attempt to create 2 columns of data as text (where they are meant to be aligned neatly)

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

txt = '{0:50} {1:.4e}'.format('Row1:', 0.1542457) + '\n' + \
      '{0:50} {1:.4e}'.format('Row2:', 0.00145744) + '\n' + \
  '{0:50} {1:.4e}'.format('Long name for this row):', 0.00146655744) + '\n' + \
  '{0:50} {1}'.format('medium size name):', 'some text')

fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_axes((0.1, 0.3, 0.8, 0.65))
ax1.plot(range(10),range(10))
fig.text(0.17, 0.07,txt)
plt.show()

which look nice when I print the txt variable to the screen:

aligned text

but is not aligned in my plot

misaligned text

I think this happens because in second case it uses non monospaced font. — Igonato
– Igonato, Commented Oct 9, 2013 at 1:11

Igonato · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-09 01:17:18Z

6

You need to use a monospace font in order to keep formating:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

txt = '{0:50} {1:.4e}\n'.format('Row1:', 0.1542457) + \
      '{0:50} {1:.4e}\n'.format('Row2:', 0.00145744) + \
      '{0:50} {1:.4e}\n'.format('Long name for this row):', 0.00146655744) + \
      '{0:50} {1}'.format('medium size name):', 'some text')

fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_axes((0.1, 0.3, 0.8, 0.65))
ax1.plot(range(10),range(10))
fig.text(0.17, 0.07, txt, family='monospace')
plt.show()

enter image description here

answered Oct 9, 2013 at 1:17

Igonato

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Comments

wwii · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-09 01:26:46Z

Make two strings txtL and txtR and use the multialignment kwarg but it might be hard to programatically figure out the y location for txtR.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

txt = '{0:50} {1:.4e}'.format('Row1:', 0.1542457) + '\n' + \
      '{0:50} {1:.4e}'.format('Row2:', 0.00145744) + '\n' + \
  '{0:50} {1:.4e}'.format('Long name for this row):', 0.00146655744) + '\n' + \
  '{0:50} {1}'.format('medium size name):', 'some text')

txtL = 'Row1:\nRow2:\nLong name for this row):\nmedium size name):'
txtR = '0.1542457\n0.00145744\n0.00146655744\nsome text'

fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_axes((0.1, 0.3, 0.8, 0.65))
ax1.plot(range(10),range(10))
fig.text(0.17, 0.07,txtL, multialignment = 'left')
fig.text(0.7, 0.07,txtR, multialignment = 'right')

plt.show()
plt.close()

enter image description here

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