Re: [Matplotlib-users] using subscripts and tex in labels

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

per freem wrote:
> hi all,
> 
> two quick questions about labels. first, is there a way to make
> subscripts/superscripts *without* using TeX in labels? For example, I
> use helvetica in all my labels and I want to plot something like:
> plt.xlabel("log10") where "10" is a subscript of "log", but without
> doing: plt.xlabel(r"$\log_{10}$"), since that will use LaTeX fonts
> instead of my helvetica font.

See the mathtext options in matplotlibrc.template.  It looks like what 
you need is

matplotlib.rc('mathtext', fontset='stixsans')

maybe with the additional kwarg, default='regular', if you don't want 
italics.

All this is with text.usetex=False (the default).


> 
> second question, when using TeX, I tried the following TeX command in labels:
> plt.annotate(r"\frac{\sigma}{\sqrt{\mu}}", ....) but it complains that
> "not all arguments converted during string formatting" -- but it seems
> like correct TeX to me. if I try r"\frac{1}{2}" then it works, but
> using \sigma and \sqrt inside breaks it.. any idea how to fix this?

This is working for me with usetex=False or True but including dollar 
signs to signal the use of mathtext (or TeX) parsing.

Eric