shanhaiying/matplotlib2tikz

A converter that takes a matplotlib figure and spits out a TikZ (Pgfplots) figure for smooth integration into LaTeX.

matplotlib2tikz

This is matplotlib2tikz, a Python script for converting matplotlib figures into native Pgfplots (TikZ) figures.

To download matplotlibtikz, go to its page on GitHub https://github.com/nschloe/matplotlib2tikz.

Installation

1. Place the matplotlib2tikz script in a directory where Python can find it (e.g., $PYTHONPATH). You can install it systemwide with

    sudo python setup.py install
   

   or place the script matplotlib2tikz.py into the directory where you intend to use it.

2. Make sure that your LaTeX installation includes the packages

• TikZ (aka PGF, >=2.00), and
• Pgfplots (>=1.3).

Usage

1. Generate your matplotlib plot as usual.

2. Instead of pyplot.show(), invoke matplotlib2tikz by

    tikz_save( 'myfile.tikz' );
   

   to store the TikZ file as myfile.tikz. Load the libary with:

    from matplotlib2tikz import save as tikz_save
   

   Optional: The scripts accepts several options, for example height, width, encoding, and some others. Invoke by

    tikz_save( 'myfile.tikz', figureheight='4cm', figurewidth='6cm' )
   

   IMPORTANT: Height and width must be set large enough; setting it too low it may result in a LaTeX compilation failure such as - Dimension Too Large, or - Arithmetic Overflow (see information about these errors in the manual of Pgfplots)

   To specify the dimension of the plot from within the LaTeX document, try

    tikz_save('myfile.tikz',
              figureheight = '\\figureheight',
              figurewidth = '\\figurewidth'
              )
   

   and in the LaTeX source

    \newlength\figureheight
    \newlength\figurewidth
    \setlength\figureheight{4cm}
    \setlength\figurewidth{6cm}
    \input{myfile.tikz}
   

3. Add the contents of myfile.tikz into your LaTeX source code; a convenient way of doing so is to use \input{/path/to/myfile.tikz}. Also make sure that at the header of your document the packages TikZ and Pgfplots are included:

    \usepackage{tikz}
    \usepackage{pgfplots}
   

   Optionally, to use features of the latest Pgfplots package (as of Pgfplots 1.3), insert

    \pgfplotsset{compat=newest}
   

License

matplotlib2tikz is published under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0.

Contributing

If you experience bugs, would like to contribute, have nice examples of what matplotlib2tikz can do, or if you are just looking for more information, then please visit the web page of matplotlib2tikz https://github.com/nschloe/matplotlib2tikz.