Matplotlib: 100 Tips and Strategies for Crafting Professional-Quality Plots, From Bar Charts to Geographic Data Visualizations

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

Here are 100 tips for working with Matplotlib, a popular 2D plotting library in Python:

Basic Plotting:

1. Import Matplotlib with import matplotlib.pyplot as plt.
2. Create a simple line plot with plt.plot().
3. Customize plot appearance with parameters like color, linestyle, and marker.
4. Display the plot with plt.show().
5. Save the plot as an image file with plt.savefig().

Line Plots:

1. Plot multiple lines on the same graph using plt.plot() multiple times.
2. Add labels to lines with plt.legend().
3. Customize line styles with options like ‘ — ‘, ‘-.’, or ‘:’.
4. Control line width with the linewidth parameter.
5. Highlight specific points on the plot with plt.scatter().

Scatter Plots:

1. Create scatter plots with plt.scatter().
2. Adjust the size and color of markers.
3. Use color maps for varied marker colors.
4. Add a color bar to the…