Re: [Matplotlib-users] Pdf File sizes on newer versions of matplotlib is a lot larger

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

On 2013/07/29 9:17 PM, Jeffrey Spencer wrote:
> I have three different versions of matplotlib that all output different
> file sizes with matplotlib 1.1.1 providing the smallest. This is for the
> same exact script. I can post the script if that helps.
>
> MPL 1.4.x: 539.32kb, Ubuntu 12.10
> MPL 1.1.1: 172.56kb Ubuntu 12.10
> MPL 1.2.1: 475.9kb, Ubuntu 13.04
>
> Is there a reason for this or why would such different file sizes be
> produced?? Also I tried using the matplotlib.use('cairo') with no
> difference. It actually says that the cairo backend is selected but the
> outputted pdf files show the matplotlib pdf backend was used.
>

I can't reproduce this failure to produce a pdf file with cairo.  With
mpl 1.4.x,

import matplotlib
matplotlib.use('cairo')
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.plot([1,2,3])
plt.savefig("test.pdf")

The result is

efiring@manini3:~$ pdfinfo test.pdf
Creator:        cairo 1.10.2 (http://cairographics.org)
Producer:       cairo 1.10.2 (http://cairographics.org)
Tagged:         no
Pages:          1
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      576 x 432 pts
File size:      5261 bytes
Optimized:      no
PDF version:    1.5

Repeating but without specifying the cairo backend I get:

efiring@manini3:~$ pdfinfo test_default.pdf
Creator:        matplotlib 1.4.x, http://matplotlib.org
Producer:       matplotlib pdf backend
CreationDate:   Mon Jul 29 21:51:22 2013
Tagged:         no
Pages:          1
Encrypted:      no
Page size:      576 x 432 pts
File size:      5184 bytes
Optimized:      no
PDF version:    1.4

Eric