.. _pylab_examples-text_rotation: pylab_examples example code: text_rotation.py ============================================= .. plot:: /home/tcaswell/src/p/matplotlib/doc/mpl_examples/pylab_examples/text_rotation.py :: """ The way matplotlib does text layout is counter-intuitive to some, so this example is designed to make it a little clearer. The text is aligned by it's bounding box (the rectangular box that surrounds the ink rectangle). The order of operations is basically rotation then alignment, rather than alignment then rotation. Basically, the text is centered at your x,y location, rotated around this point, and then aligned according to the bounding box of the rotated text. So if you specify left, bottom alignment, the bottom left of the bounding box of the rotated text will be at the x,y coordinate of the text. But a picture is worth a thousand words! """ import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np def addtext(props): plt.text(0.5, 0.5, 'text 0', props, rotation=0) plt.text(1.5, 0.5, 'text 45', props, rotation=45) plt.text(2.5, 0.5, 'text 135', props, rotation=135) plt.text(3.5, 0.5, 'text 225', props, rotation=225) plt.text(4.5, 0.5, 'text -45', props, rotation=-45) plt.yticks([0, .5, 1]) plt.grid(True) # the text bounding box bbox = {'fc': '0.8', 'pad': 0} plt.subplot(211) addtext({'ha': 'center', 'va': 'center', 'bbox': bbox}) plt.xlim(0, 5) plt.xticks(np.arange(0, 5.1, 0.5), []) plt.ylabel('center / center') plt.subplot(212) addtext({'ha': 'left', 'va': 'bottom', 'bbox': bbox}) plt.xlim(0, 5) plt.xticks(np.arange(0, 5.1, 0.5)) plt.ylabel('left / bottom') plt.show() Keywords: python, matplotlib, pylab, example, codex (see :ref:`how-to-search-examples`)