Matplotlib Basics: Plotting with Python

Matplotlib Basics

Matplotlib is the foundational plotting library in Python. It works well for static images and integrates tightly with Pandas.

Importing the library

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

Simple line plot

x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
y = [2, 3, 5, 7, 11]
plt.plot(x, y, marker='o', linestyle='-')
plt.title('Simple Line Plot')
plt.xlabel('X axis')
plt.ylabel('Y axis')
plt.show()

Saving a figure

plt.savefig('images/line_plot.png', dpi=300, bbox_inches='tight')

The Figure and Axes objects

fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(6,4))
ax.plot(x, y, color='purple')
ax.set_title('Figure & Axes Example')
plt.show()