Putting newline in matplotlib label with TeX in Python?

Question

How can I add a newline to a plot's label (e.g. xlabel or ylabel) in matplotlib? For example,

plt.bar([1, 2], [4, 5])
plt.xlabel("My x label")
plt.ylabel(r"My long label with $\Sigma_{C}$ math \n continues here") 

Ideally I'd like the y-labeled to be centered too. Is there a way to do this? It's important that the label have both TeX (enclosed in '$') and the newline.

Solution 1

Your example is exactly how it's done, you use \n. You need to take off the r prefix though so python doesn't treat it as a raw string

Solution 2

You can have the best of both worlds: automatic "escaping" of LaTeX commands and newlines:

plt.ylabel(r"My long label with unescaped {\LaTeX} $\Sigma_{C}$ math"
           "\n"  # Newline: the backslash is interpreted as usual
           r"continues here with $\pi$")

(instead of using three lines, separating the strings by single spaces is another option).

In fact, Python automatically concatenates string literals that follow each other, and you can mix raw strings (r"…") and strings with character interpolation ("\n").

Solution 3

plt.bar([1, 2], [4, 5])
plt.xlabel("My x label")
plt.ylabel(r"My long label with $\Sigma_{C}$ math" + "\n" + "continues here")

Just concatenate the strings with a newline that isn't in raw string form.

Solution 4

The following matplotlib python script creates text with new line

ax.text(10, 70, 'shock size \n $n-n_{fd}$')

The following does not have new line. Notice the r before the text

ax.text(10, 70, r'shock size \n $n-n_{fd}$')

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Comments

[Benjamin Bannier]

You might want to proactively double-escape LaTeX commands to make sure they are not interpreted by Python: xlabel('$\\Sigma$')

[aaren]

This answer is not correct. You either double escape the latex `` in a normal string (no r) or you follow @EOLs answer

[Faber]

regarding centering: ylabel('this is vertical\ntest', multialignment='center') from matplotlib.org/examples/pylab_examples/multiline.html

[SeanM]

Just a quick comment--this was the perfect solution for an easy way to label subplots with an (a), (b), etc. when that label should be below the plot and centered with the xlabel. This way plt.tight_layout() also sees the whole label and adjusts accordingly.

[berkelem]

This should be the accepted answer. Also note that it works with Python string formatting, e.g. r"$\alpha$ : {0} " "\n" r"$\beta$ : {1}".format(a, b)

[Samuel]

Unfortunately none of the proposed solutions work with the option rcParams["text.usetex"] = True