How to use matplotlib tight layout with Figure?

Question

I found tight_layout function for pyplot and want to use it. In my application I embed matplotlib plots into Qt GUI and use figure and not pyplot. Is there any way I can apply tight_layout there? Would it also work if I have several axes in one figure?

Answer 1

Just call fig.tight_layout() as you normally would. (pyplot is just a convenience wrapper. In most cases, you only use it to quickly generate figure and axes objects and then call their methods directly.)

There shouldn't be a difference between the QtAgg backend and the default backend (or if there is, it's a bug).

E.g.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

#-- In your case, you'd do something more like:
# from matplotlib.figure import Figure
# fig = Figure()
#-- ...but we want to use it interactive for a quick example, so 
#--    we'll do it this way
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=4, ncols=4)

for i, ax in enumerate(axes.flat, start=1):
    ax.set_title('Test Axes {}'.format(i))
    ax.set_xlabel('X axis')
    ax.set_ylabel('Y axis')

plt.show()

Before Tight Layout

After Tight Layout

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=4, ncols=4)

for i, ax in enumerate(axes.flat, start=1):
    ax.set_title('Test Axes {}'.format(i))
    ax.set_xlabel('X axis')
    ax.set_ylabel('Y axis')

fig.tight_layout()

plt.show()