Improve subplot size/spacing with many subplots in matplotlib

Try using plt.tight_layout

As a quick example:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=4, ncols=4)
fig.tight_layout() # Or equivalently,  "plt.tight_layout()"

plt.show()

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Without Tight Layout

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With Tight Layout

You can use plt.subplots_adjust to change the spacing between the subplots (source)

call signature:

subplots_adjust(left=None, bottom=None, right=None, top=None, wspace=None, hspace=None)

The parameter meanings (and suggested defaults) are:

left  = 0.125  # the left side of the subplots of the figure
right = 0.9    # the right side of the subplots of the figure
bottom = 0.1   # the bottom of the subplots of the figure
top = 0.9      # the top of the subplots of the figure
wspace = 0.2   # the amount of width reserved for blank space between subplots
hspace = 0.2   # the amount of height reserved for white space between subplots

The actual defaults are controlled by the rc file

I found that subplots_adjust(hspace = 0.001) is what ended up working for me. When I use space = None, there is still white space between each plot. Setting it to something very close to zero however seems to force them to line up. What I've uploaded here isn't the most elegant piece of code, but you can see how the hspace works.

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.ticker as tic

fig = plt.figure()

x = np.arange(100)
y = 3.*np.sin(x*2.*np.pi/100.)

for i in range(5):
    temp = 510 + i
    ax = plt.subplot(temp)
    plt.plot(x,y)
    plt.subplots_adjust(hspace = .001)
    temp = tic.MaxNLocator(3)
    ax.yaxis.set_major_locator(temp)
    ax.set_xticklabels(())
    ax.title.set_visible(False)

plt.show()