How to change the text color of font in legend?
As of matplotlib version 3.3.0, you can now directly use the keyword argument labelcolor
in matplotlib.pyplot.legend()
.
Example using the same color as the corresponding artist by setting labelcolor='linecolor'
:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
plt.figure(figsize=(4, 3))
plt.plot(np.arange(10), np.random.rand(10) * 0, '-', label='spam')
plt.plot(np.arange(10), np.random.rand(10) * 1, ':', label='ham')
plt.plot(np.arange(10), np.random.rand(10) * 2, 'o', label='eggs')
plt.legend(labelcolor='linecolor')
Example changing all text to white by setting labelcolor='w'
, e.g. for dark backgrounds:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
plt.figure(figsize=(4, 3))
plt.plot(np.arange(10), np.random.rand(10) * 0, '-', label='spam')
plt.plot(np.arange(10), np.random.rand(10) * 1, ':', label='ham')
plt.plot(np.arange(10), np.random.rand(10) * 2, 'o', label='eggs')
plt.legend(facecolor='k', labelcolor='w')
call Legend.get_texts()
will get a list of Text object in the legend object:
import pylab as pl
pl.plot(randn(100), label="randn")
l = legend()
for text in l.get_texts():
text.set_color("red")
You can also do it with setp():
import pylab as plt
leg = plt.legend(framealpha = 0, loc = 'best')
for text in leg.get_texts():
plt.setp(text, color = 'w')
this method also allows you to set the fontsize and any number of other font properties in one line (listed here: http://matplotlib.org/users/text_props.html)
full example:
import pylab as plt
x = range(100)
y1 = range(100,200)
y2 = range(50,150)
fig = plt.figure(facecolor = 'k')
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, axisbg = 'k')
ax.tick_params(color='w', labelcolor='w')
for spine in ax.spines.values():
spine.set_edgecolor('w')
ax.plot(x, y1, c = 'w', label = 'y1')
ax.plot(x, y2, c = 'g', label = 'y2')
leg = plt.legend(framealpha = 0, loc = 'best')
for text in leg.get_texts():
plt.setp(text, color = 'w')
plt.show()
Because plt.setp
broadcasts over iterables, you can also modify the text color in one line:
# Show some cool graphs
legend = plt.legend()
plt.setp(legend.get_texts(), color='w')
The last line will apply the colour to all elements in the collection of texts.