Search code examples
pythonmatplotlibbar-chartyaxis

Barchart with vertical ytick labels


I'm using matplotlib to generate a (vertical) barchart. The problem is my labels are rather long. Is there any way to display them vertically, either in the bar or above it or below it?


Solution

  • Do you mean something like this:

    >>> from matplotlib import *
    >>> plot(xrange(10))
    >>> yticks(xrange(10), rotation='vertical')
    

    ?

    In general, to show any text in matplotlib with a vertical orientation, you can add the keyword rotation='vertical'.

    For further options, you can look at help(matplotlib.pyplot.text)

    The yticks function plots the ticks on the y axis; I am not sure whether you originally meant this or the ylabel function, but the procedure is alwasy the same, you have to add rotation='vertical'

    Maybe you can also find useful the options 'verticalalignment' and 'horizontalalignment', which allows you to define how to align the text with respect to the ticks or the other elements.