.. _pylab_examples-customize_rc:

pylab_examples example code: customize_rc.py
============================================



.. plot:: /home/tcaswell/source/p/matplotlib/doc/mpl_examples/pylab_examples/customize_rc.py

::

    """
    I'm not trying to make a good looking figure here, but just to show
    some examples of customizing rc params on the fly
    
    If you like to work interactively, and need to create different sets
    of defaults for figures (e.g., one set of defaults for publication, one
    set for interactive exploration), you may want to define some
    functions in a custom module that set the defaults, e.g.,
    
    def set_pub():
        rc('font', weight='bold')    # bold fonts are easier to see
        rc('tick', labelsize=15)     # tick labels bigger
        rc('lines', lw=1, color='k') # thicker black lines (no budget for color!)
        rc('grid', c='0.5', ls='-', lw=0.5)  # solid gray grid lines
        rc('savefig', dpi=300)       # higher res outputs
    
    
    
    Then as you are working interactively, you just need to do
    
    >>> set_pub()
    >>> subplot(111)
    >>> plot([1,2,3])
    >>> savefig('myfig')
    >>> rcdefaults()  # restore the defaults
    
    """
    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
    
    plt.subplot(311)
    plt.plot([1, 2, 3])
    
    # the axes attributes need to be set before the call to subplot
    plt.rc('font', weight='bold')
    plt.rc('xtick.major', size=5, pad=7)
    plt.rc('xtick', labelsize=15)
    
    # using aliases for color, linestyle and linewidth; gray, solid, thick
    plt.rc('grid', c='0.5', ls='-', lw=5)
    plt.rc('lines', lw=2, color='g')
    plt.subplot(312)
    
    plt.plot([1, 2, 3])
    plt.grid(True)
    
    plt.rcdefaults()
    plt.subplot(313)
    plt.plot([1, 2, 3])
    plt.grid(True)
    plt.show()
    

Keywords: python, matplotlib, pylab, example, codex (see :ref:`how-to-search-examples`)