Resizing axes with tight layout

tight_layout attempts to resize subplots in a figure so that there are no overlaps between axes objects and labels on the axes.

See Tight Layout guide for more details and Constrained Layout Guide for an alternative.

import itertools
import warnings

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fontsizes = itertools.cycle([8, 16, 24, 32])


def example_plot(ax):
    ax.plot([1, 2])
    ax.set_xlabel('x-label', fontsize=next(fontsizes))
    ax.set_ylabel('y-label', fontsize=next(fontsizes))
    ax.set_title('Title', fontsize=next(fontsizes))

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
example_plot(ax)
fig.tight_layout()

fig, ((ax1, ax2), (ax3, ax4)) = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2)
example_plot(ax1)
example_plot(ax2)
example_plot(ax3)
example_plot(ax4)
fig.tight_layout()

fig, (ax1, ax2) = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=1)
example_plot(ax1)
example_plot(ax2)
fig.tight_layout()

fig, (ax1, ax2) = plt.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=2)
example_plot(ax1)
example_plot(ax2)
fig.tight_layout()

fig, axs = plt.subplots(nrows=3, ncols=3)
for ax in axs.flat:
    example_plot(ax)
fig.tight_layout()

plt.figure()
ax1 = plt.subplot(221)
ax2 = plt.subplot(223)
ax3 = plt.subplot(122)
example_plot(ax1)
example_plot(ax2)
example_plot(ax3)
plt.tight_layout()

plt.figure()
ax1 = plt.subplot2grid((3, 3), (0, 0))
ax2 = plt.subplot2grid((3, 3), (0, 1), colspan=2)
ax3 = plt.subplot2grid((3, 3), (1, 0), colspan=2, rowspan=2)
ax4 = plt.subplot2grid((3, 3), (1, 2), rowspan=2)
example_plot(ax1)
example_plot(ax2)
example_plot(ax3)
example_plot(ax4)
plt.tight_layout()

fig = plt.figure()

gs1 = fig.add_gridspec(3, 1)
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(gs1[0])
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(gs1[1])
ax3 = fig.add_subplot(gs1[2])
example_plot(ax1)
example_plot(ax2)
example_plot(ax3)
gs1.tight_layout(fig, rect=[None, None, 0.45, None])

gs2 = fig.add_gridspec(2, 1)
ax4 = fig.add_subplot(gs2[0])
ax5 = fig.add_subplot(gs2[1])
example_plot(ax4)
example_plot(ax5)
with warnings.catch_warnings():
    # gs2.tight_layout cannot handle the subplots from the first gridspec
    # (gs1), so it will raise a warning. We are going to match the gridspecs
    # manually so we can filter the warning away.
    warnings.simplefilter("ignore", UserWarning)
    gs2.tight_layout(fig, rect=[0.45, None, None, None])

# now match the top and bottom of two gridspecs.
top = min(gs1.top, gs2.top)
bottom = max(gs1.bottom, gs2.bottom)

gs1.update(top=top, bottom=bottom)
gs2.update(top=top, bottom=bottom)

plt.show()

References

The use of the following functions, methods, classes and modules is shown in this example:

• matplotlib.figure.Figure.tight_layout / matplotlib.pyplot.tight_layout

• matplotlib.figure.Figure.add_gridspec

• matplotlib.figure.Figure.add_subplot

• matplotlib.pyplot.subplot2grid