.. note::
    :class: sphx-glr-download-link-note

    Click :ref:`here <sphx_glr_download_gallery_ticks_and_spines_centered_ticklabels.py>` to download the full example code
.. rst-class:: sphx-glr-example-title

.. _sphx_glr_gallery_ticks_and_spines_centered_ticklabels.py:


===================
Centered Ticklabels
===================

sometimes it is nice to have ticklabels centered.  Matplotlib currently
associates a label with a tick, and the label can be aligned
'center', 'left', or 'right' using the horizontal alignment property::

    ax.xaxis.set_tick_params(horizontalalignment='right')

but this doesn't help center the label between ticks.  One solution
is to "fake it".  Use the minor ticks to place a tick centered
between the major ticks.  Here is an example that labels the months,
centered between the ticks




.. image:: /gallery/ticks_and_spines/images/sphx_glr_centered_ticklabels_001.png
    :class: sphx-glr-single-img





.. code-block:: python


    import numpy as np
    import matplotlib.cbook as cbook
    import matplotlib.dates as dates
    import matplotlib.ticker as ticker
    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

    # load some financial data; apple's stock price
    with cbook.get_sample_data('aapl.npz') as fh:
        r = np.load(fh)['price_data'].view(np.recarray)
    r = r[-250:]  # get the last 250 days
    # Matplotlib works better with datetime.datetime than np.datetime64, but the
    # latter is more portable.
    date = r.date.astype('O')

    fig, ax = plt.subplots()
    ax.plot(date, r.adj_close)

    ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(dates.MonthLocator())
    ax.xaxis.set_minor_locator(dates.MonthLocator(bymonthday=15))

    ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(ticker.NullFormatter())
    ax.xaxis.set_minor_formatter(dates.DateFormatter('%b'))

    for tick in ax.xaxis.get_minor_ticks():
        tick.tick1line.set_markersize(0)
        tick.tick2line.set_markersize(0)
        tick.label1.set_horizontalalignment('center')

    imid = len(r) // 2
    ax.set_xlabel(str(date[imid].year))
    plt.show()


.. _sphx_glr_download_gallery_ticks_and_spines_centered_ticklabels.py:


.. only :: html

 .. container:: sphx-glr-footer
    :class: sphx-glr-footer-example



  .. container:: sphx-glr-download

     :download:`Download Python source code: centered_ticklabels.py <centered_ticklabels.py>`



  .. container:: sphx-glr-download

     :download:`Download Jupyter notebook: centered_ticklabels.ipynb <centered_ticklabels.ipynb>`


.. only:: html

 .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-signature

    Keywords: matplotlib code example, codex, python plot, pyplot
    `Gallery generated by Sphinx-Gallery
    <https://sphinx-gallery.readthedocs.io>`_