Shanto Roy

I Explore Research, Tech, Travel, and Business. PhD Student @UHCS.

4 minute read

I used to draw plots using matplotlib a lot and then add the figures in reports. Later I switched to latex plots as it is easier and works best for numerous reasons!

Read my other post to learn the benifits of using latex plots in reports: Why you should use Latex Plots in your Reports instead of Matplotlib Plots

Recently, I found a module that converts python matplotlib plots to latex plots. I was literally fascinated by this since sometimes I have to struggle creating similar results using latex pgfplots and most of all it requires some times to do that.

In this post I will provide some examples on how to do that.

Install tikzplotlib

Let’s first install the following python module names tikzplotlib

$ pip install tikzplotlib

Using tikzplotlib

Write the following code piece after your matplotlib code

# your matplotlib code
# remove or comment `plt.show()`

import tikzplotlib
tikzplotlib.save("test.tex")
# or
tikzplotlib.save("test.tex", flavor="context")
# tikzplotlib.get_tikz_code()

It will store the latex code in test.tex file that resides in the same directory.

However, you may find an empty code in the tex file if you don’t remove the plt.show() line from your python code. Initially, I was trying that with this line and it didn’t work.

You can use tikzplotlib.get_tikz_code() if you want the code as string.

Example

As an example, I was able to convert the following python code

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

A = np.arange(1, 11)
B = np.random.randn(10) # 10 rand. values from a std. norm. distr.
C = B.cumsum()

fig, (ax0, ax1) = plt.subplots(ncols=2, sharex=True, sharey=True, figsize=(10,5))

## A) via plt.step()

ax0.step(A, C, label='cumulative sum') # cumulative sum via numpy.cumsum()
ax0.scatter(A, B, label='actual values')
ax0.set_ylabel('Y value')
ax0.legend(loc='upper right')


## B) via plt.plot()

ax1.plot(A, C, label='cumulative sum') # cumulative sum via numpy.cumsum()
ax1.scatter(A, B, label='actual values')
ax1.legend(loc='upper right')

fig.text(0.5, 0.04, 'sample number', ha='center', va='center')
fig.text(0.5, 0.95, 'Cumulative sum of 10 samples from a random normal distribution', ha='center', va='center')

# plt.show()

import tikzplotlib
tikzplotlib.save("mytikz.tex")

to this:

\begin{tikzpicture}

\definecolor{color0}{rgb}{0.12156862745098,0.466666666666667,0.705882352941177}

\begin{groupplot}[group style={group size=2 by 1}]
\nextgroupplot[
legend cell align={left},
legend style={fill opacity=0.8, draw opacity=1, text opacity=1, draw=white!80!black},
tick align=outside,
tick pos=both,
x grid style={white!69.0196078431373!black},
xmin=0.417841810613945, xmax=10.5821581893861,
xtick style={color=black},
y grid style={white!69.0196078431373!black},
ylabel={Y value},
ymin=-1.30024730980492, ymax=1.49472414429111,
ytick style={color=black}
]
\addplot [draw=color0, fill=color0, mark=*, only marks]
table{
x  y
1 -0.170017665288662
2 -0.0464802941273717
3 0.586557002451665
4 0.255262853207627
5 -0.545461307198665
6 -1.01133555864772
7 -0.241728183197433
8 0.782843124656819
9 0.799589432056481
10 0.958450583374001
};
\addlegendentry{actual values}
\addplot [semithick, color0, const plot mark right]
table {
1 -0.170017665288662
2 -0.216497959416034
3 0.370059043035632
4 0.625321896243259
5 0.0798605890445936
6 -0.931474969603124
7 -1.17320315280056
8 -0.390360028143738
9 0.409229403912743
10 1.36767998728674
};
\addlegendentry{cumulative sum}

\nextgroupplot[
legend cell align={left},
legend style={fill opacity=0.8, draw opacity=1, text opacity=1, draw=white!80!black},
scaled y ticks=manual:{}{\pgfmathparse{#1}},
tick align=outside,
tick pos=both,
x grid style={white!69.0196078431373!black},
xmin=0.417841810613945, xmax=10.5821581893861,
xtick style={color=black},
y grid style={white!69.0196078431373!black},
ymin=-1.30024730980492, ymax=1.49472414429111,
ytick style={color=black},
yticklabels={}
]
\addplot [draw=color0, fill=color0, mark=*, only marks]
table{
x  y
1 -0.170017665288662
2 -0.0464802941273717
3 0.586557002451665
4 0.255262853207627
5 -0.545461307198665
6 -1.01133555864772
7 -0.241728183197433
8 0.782843124656819
9 0.799589432056481
10 0.958450583374001
};
\addlegendentry{actual values}
\addplot [semithick, color0]
table {
1 -0.170017665288662
2 -0.216497959416034
3 0.370059043035632
4 0.625321896243259
5 0.0798605890445936
6 -0.931474969603124
7 -1.17320315280056
8 -0.390360028143738
9 0.409229403912743
10 1.36767998728674
};
\addlegendentry{cumulative sum}
\end{groupplot}

\draw ({$(current bounding box.south west)!0.5!(current bounding box.south east)$}|-{$(current bounding box.south west)!0.04!(current bounding box.north west)$}) node[
  scale=0.5,
  text=black,
  rotate=0.0
]{sample number};
\draw ({$(current bounding box.south west)!0.5!(current bounding box.south east)$}|-{$(current bounding box.south west)!0.95!(current bounding box.north west)$}) node[
  scale=0.5,
  text=black,
  rotate=0.0
]{Cumulative sum of 10 samples from a random normal distribution};
\end{tikzpicture}

All you need to do is, put the latex code within figure environment for better positioning, captioning, and labeling.

\begin{figure}[!ht]
    \centering
    
    \caption{Matplotlib to Tikz}
    \label{fig:my_tikz}
\end{figure}

Check the output in this overleaf project.

That’s all for today!

You can find a comprehensive list of Latex resources in the following post:

Latex Resources in a Nutshell

If you are a new Latex user, check out this post: 20 Most Common Mistakes Made by New Latex Users

You can find all Latex oriented posts of mine in: https://shantoroy.com/categories/#latex

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