Re: [Matplotlib-users] Global font size

[Eric F. <ef...@ha...>]

Bill Baxter wrote:
> Thanks for the reply.
> 
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Darren Dale <dsd...@gm...> wrote:
>> On Thursday 19 June 2008 9:13:15 pm Bill Baxter wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Darren Dale <dsd...@gm...> wrote:
>>>> Hi Bill,
>>>>
>>>> On Thursday 19 June 2008 8:18:12 pm Bill Baxter wrote:
>>>>> Matplot folks,
>>>>> Is there a way to increase all font sizes globally across the board?
>>>>> I played around with some RC parameters but they don't seem to have
>>>>> any effect.
>>>> Here's a note from the default matplotlibrc:
>>>>
>>>> # note that font.size controls default text sizes.  To configure
>>>> # special text sizes tick labels, axes, labels, title, etc, see the rc
>>>> # settings for axes and ticks. Special text sizes can be defined
>>>> # relative to font.size, using the following values: xx-small, x-small,
>>>> # small, medium, large, x-large, xx-large, larger, or smaller
>>>> #font.size           : 12.0
>>>>
>>>> You set that size, and then set a relative size (like "medium") for your
>>>> other settings. I should include this in the new docs, if it is not
>>>> covered already.
>>> According to the docs the rc function is supposed to be able to do the
>>> same thing as editing matplotlibrc.
>>> I tried doing
>>>   rc('font', size=20)
>>> and several variations of that invoked at several different places in
>>> my file, and it seemed to have no effect.
>>>
>>> Did I do it wrong?  Does rc() not really work as advertised?
>>> Something completely different?
>> I think in this case, you need to change those settings before importing
>> pylab:
>>
>> import matplotlib
>> matplotlib.rcParams['font.size'] = 12
>> import pylab
> 
> I see.  I usually just do it in one shot like:
>   from matplotlib import pylab as plot
> 
>> or better yet, do it with a matplotlibrc file
>>
>>> For what it's worth my matplotlib.pylab.__version__ is '1.1.0'
>> Really? That looks like numpy's version, not matplotlib's.
> 
> I guess it's just namespace weirdness then.  Using the import
> incantation I gave above, plot.__version__ reports 1.1.0.
> matplotlib.__version__ gives '0.98.0'.
> 
> I tried putting this in my matplotlibrc but it seems to have no effect:
> 
>     font.size : 30.0
> 
> Just to make sure things were actually working I also tried this:
> 
>    font.weight : bold
> 
> That one worked, all text on the plot turned bold.  That suggests to
> me that the global font size setting probably just has a bug at the
> moment.

I see one slightly obscure bug that is not the cause of this problem.

The big problem appears to be that although the mechanism is in place 
for all this nice global control, it is not being *used* by default. 
That is, the default sizes for axis labels and such are all given in 
points, not using the strings "medium" etc.  As a workaround you could 
make a matplotlibrc file with the strings substituted for all the font 
sizes in points that you can find; but it looks like this is something 
we really need to fix.

Eric

> 
> --bb
> 
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