Precise text layout

You can precisely layout text in data or axes coordinates. This example shows you some of the alignment and rotation specifications for text layout.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Build a rectangle in axes coords
left, width = .25, .5
bottom, height = .25, .5
right = left + width
top = bottom + height
ax = plt.gca()
p = plt.Rectangle((left, bottom), width, height, fill=False)
p.set_transform(ax.transAxes)
p.set_clip_on(False)
ax.add_patch(p)


ax.text(left, bottom, 'left top',
        horizontalalignment='left',
        verticalalignment='top',
        transform=ax.transAxes)

ax.text(left, bottom, 'left bottom',
        horizontalalignment='left',
        verticalalignment='bottom',
        transform=ax.transAxes)

ax.text(right, top, 'right bottom',
        horizontalalignment='right',
        verticalalignment='bottom',
        transform=ax.transAxes)

ax.text(right, top, 'right top',
        horizontalalignment='right',
        verticalalignment='top',
        transform=ax.transAxes)

ax.text(right, bottom, 'center top',
        horizontalalignment='center',
        verticalalignment='top',
        transform=ax.transAxes)

ax.text(left, 0.5 * (bottom + top), 'right center',
        horizontalalignment='right',
        verticalalignment='center',
        rotation='vertical',
        transform=ax.transAxes)

ax.text(left, 0.5 * (bottom + top), 'left center',
        horizontalalignment='left',
        verticalalignment='center',
        rotation='vertical',
        transform=ax.transAxes)

ax.text(0.5 * (left + right), 0.5 * (bottom + top), 'middle',
        horizontalalignment='center',
        verticalalignment='center',
        transform=ax.transAxes)

ax.text(right, 0.5 * (bottom + top), 'centered',
        horizontalalignment='center',
        verticalalignment='center',
        rotation='vertical',
        transform=ax.transAxes)

ax.text(left, top, 'rotated\nwith newlines',
        horizontalalignment='center',
        verticalalignment='center',
        rotation=45,
        transform=ax.transAxes)

plt.axis('off')

plt.show()