317
votes

How do I change the size of my image so it's suitable for printing?

For example, I'd like to use to A4 paper, whose dimensions are 11.7 inches by 8.27 inches in landscape orientation.

12

12 Answers

271
votes

You need to create the matplotlib Figure and Axes objects ahead of time, specifying how big the figure is:

from matplotlib import pyplot
import seaborn

import mylib

a4_dims = (11.7, 8.27)
df = mylib.load_data()
fig, ax = pyplot.subplots(figsize=a4_dims)
seaborn.violinplot(ax=ax, data=df, **violin_options)
355
votes

You can also set figure size by passing dictionary to rc parameter with key 'figure.figsize' in seaborn set method:

import seaborn as sns

sns.set(rc={'figure.figsize':(11.7,8.27)})

Other alternative may be to use figure.figsize of rcParams to set figure size as below:

from matplotlib import rcParams

# figure size in inches
rcParams['figure.figsize'] = 11.7,8.27

More details can be found in matplotlib documentation

138
votes

Note that if you are trying to pass to a "figure level" method in seaborn (for example lmplot, catplot / factorplot, jointplot) you can and should specify this within the arguments using height and aspect.

sns.catplot(data=df, x='xvar', y='yvar', 
    hue='hue_bar', height=8.27, aspect=11.7/8.27)

See https://github.com/mwaskom/seaborn/issues/488 and Plotting with seaborn using the matplotlib object-oriented interface for more details on the fact that figure level methods do not obey axes specifications.

99
votes

You can set the context to be poster or manually set fig_size.

import numpy as np
import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

np.random.seed(0)
n, p = 40, 8
d = np.random.normal(0, 2, (n, p))
d += np.log(np.arange(1, p + 1)) * -5 + 10


# plot
sns.set_style('ticks')
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
# the size of A4 paper
fig.set_size_inches(11.7, 8.27)
sns.violinplot(data=d, inner="points", ax=ax)    
sns.despine()

fig.savefig('example.png')

enter image description here

88
votes

first import matplotlib and use it to set the size of the figure

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns

plt.figure(figsize=(15,8))
ax = sns.barplot(x="Word", y="Frequency", data=boxdata)
51
votes

This can be done using:

plt.figure(figsize=(15,8))
sns.kdeplot(data,shade=True)
42
votes

In addition to elz answer regarding "figure level" methods that return multi-plot grid objects it is possible to set the figure height and width explicitly (that is without using aspect ratio) using the following approach:

import seaborn as sns 

g = sns.catplot(data=df, x='xvar', y='yvar', hue='hue_bar')
g.fig.set_figwidth(8.27)
g.fig.set_figheight(11.7)
28
votes

This shall also work.

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns    

plt.figure(figsize=(15,16))
sns.countplot(data=yourdata, ...)
23
votes

For my plot (a sns factorplot) the proposed answer didn't works fine.

Thus I use

plt.gcf().set_size_inches(11.7, 8.27)

Just after the plot with seaborn (so no need to pass an ax to seaborn or to change the rc settings).

7
votes

The top answers by Paul H and J. Li do not work for all types of seaborn figures. For the FacetGrid type (for instance sns.lmplot()), use the size and aspect parameter.

Size changes both the height and width, maintaining the aspect ratio.

Aspect only changes the width, keeping the height constant.

You can always get your desired size by playing with these two parameters.

Credit: https://stackoverflow.com/a/28765059/3901029

2
votes
# Sets the figure size temporarily but has to be set again the next plot
plt.figure(figsize=(18,18))

sns.barplot(x=housing.ocean_proximity, y=housing.median_house_value)
plt.show()

An 18x18 plot of my graph

1
votes

Some tried out ways:

import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
ax, fig = plt.subplots(figsize=[15,7])
sns.boxplot(x="feature1", y="feature2",data=df) # where df would be your dataframe

or

import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.figure(figsize=[15,7])
sns.boxplot(x="feature1", y="feature2",data=df) # where df would be your dataframe