Change Matplotlib's default font

Question

I'm trying to change matplotlib's default font to Helvetica Neue. On my Mac with EPD/Canopy everything worked fine some time ago.

Trying to do the same on ubuntu now and it's not working.

This is what I did:

Installed Helvetica Neue

$ fc-match 'Helvetica Neue':Light
HelveticaNeue-Light.otf: "Helvetica Neue" "細體"

Converted the odt/dfont into ttf:
```
fondu -show HelveticaNeue.dfont
```

changed matplotlibrc to

$ cat ~/.config/matplotlib/matplotlibrc
...
font.family: Helvetica Neue

I also tried with:

font.family: sans-serif
font.sans-serif: Helvetica Neue

I removed the font cache
```
rm ~/.config/matplotlib/fontList.cache
```

But none of these steps are working for me.

    $ python -c 'from  matplotlib import pyplot as plt; plt.plot(1); plt.savefig("/tmp/test.png")'
    /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/matplotlib-1.3.0-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg/matplotlib/font_manager.py:1236: 
    UserWarning: findfont: Font family ['Helvetica Neue'] not found. Falling back to Bitstream Vera Sans

(prop.get_family(), self.defaultFamily[fontext]))

Version is 1.3.0

    $ python -c 'import matplotlib; print  matplotlib.__version__'
    1.3.0

I also tried moving the fonts to ~/.config/matplotlib/fonts/ttf but it didn't work.

EDIT: As suggested I tried selecting a specific font for a specific text.

import matplotlib as mpl
mpl.use('Agg')
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.font_manager as font_manager

path = '/home/<myusername>/.fonts/HelveticaNeue.ttf'

prop = font_manager.FontProperties(fname=path)
prop.set_weight = 'light'
mpl.rcParams['font.family'] = prop.get_name()
mpl.rcParams['font.weight'] = 'light'

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.set_title('Text in a cool font', fontproperties=prop, size=40)
plt.savefig('/tmp/test2.png')

But it makes no difference.

/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/matplotlib-1.3.0-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg/matplotlib/font_manager.py:1236: 
UserWarning: findfont: Font family ['Helvetica Neue'] not found. Falling back to Bitstream Vera Sans

However I seem to experience this problem only with this Helvetica/Helvetica Neue font. (prop.get_family(), self.defaultFamily[fontext]))

Before trying to change the default, have you been able to use the new font directly/explicitly? stackoverflow.com/a/18821968/1643946 shows one way to list the fonts that python/mpl has available, and you could try using plt.text(1, 1, 'rattling', font_family="Helvetica Neue"). See also stackoverflow.com/a/16574948/1643946 — Bonlenfum
– Bonlenfum, Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 18:28
Fair point. I've tried now with no success. Edited the question accordingly. — gozzilli
– gozzilli, Commented Jan 30, 2014 at 19:39
Can you try this installing from the master branch? There has been a bunch of work recently related to font-lookup. It also looks like the font has non-ascii in the name, iirc there is a bug someplace upstream that makes that not work. — tacaswell
– tacaswell, Commented Jan 31, 2014 at 3:25
@tcaswell Tried with master ('1.4.x') and it's the same. Note that the same font (literally the same, I copied it across) works fine on my MacOS machine. — gozzilli
– gozzilli, Commented Jan 31, 2014 at 20:03
Please create an issue on github for this. It smells like a bug to me. — tacaswell
– tacaswell, Commented Jan 31, 2014 at 20:30

vitaliis · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-13 01:46:50Z

17

This will not change your font permanently, but it's worth a try.

matplotlib.rc('font', family='sans-serif') 
matplotlib.rc('font', serif='Helvetica Neue') 
matplotlib.rc('text', usetex='false') 
matplotlib.rcParams.update({'font.size': 22})

edited May 13, 2021 at 1:46

vitaliis

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answered Feb 14, 2014 at 10:45

Brian

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4 Comments

gozzilli Over a year ago

I think the problem is not with the default behaviour, but more with the fact that it's not recognising my Helvetica Neue font. I filed a bug on github.

Brian Over a year ago

I'm using the EPD python version (enthought.com/products/epd) and Helvetica Neue is recognized there.

gozzilli Over a year ago

Great, thanks. On what OS? On my EPD (Canopy actually) for Mac it works too, but on Ubuntu it's not working.

Brian Over a year ago

I'm on Ubuntu 12.04. I hope this helps.

KyungHoon Kim · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-07 12:38:48Z

10

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Upload the fonts

sudo cp NotoSansKR-Regular.otf /usr/share/fonts/

Update the cache of font

sudo fc-cache -fv

You can check the font list

fc-list

Restart ipython, etc. Check the font list

[f.name for f in matplotlib.font_manager.fontManager.ttflist]

Take a your font name

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import rcParams
rcParams['font.family'] = 'Noto Sans Korean'

Draw

plt.title(u'한글 제목')
plt.xlabel(u'한글 축 이름')
plt.plot(range(5))

answered Feb 7, 2015 at 12:38

KyungHoon Kim

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4 Comments

imrek Over a year ago

Looks good, but does not work: [f.name for f in matplotlib.font_manager.fontManager.ttflist] gives AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'font_manager'

KyungHoon Kim Over a year ago

Could you try this command import matplotlib.font_manager

Tobias Over a year ago

sometimes matplotlib.font_manager._rebuild() is needed to use the new font

Rylan Schaeffer Over a year ago

@Tobias when I try that, I get AttributeError: module 'matplotlib.font_manager' has no attribute '_rebuild'

Lyle · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-03 07:59:06Z

Kim already introduced dynamic solution works perfectly, and here's two other ways doing the same in static.

First, you may put a line to rc file for matplotlib . Refer to this page for more information about locating the file and detailed settings.

font.family : NanumGothic

Second, if you are working with ipython, you can put some commands for font setting to a configuration file for the interactive shell. Find the file named ipython_config.py which usually located under ~/.ipython/somewhere. Then add two more lines to the list, c.InteractiveShellApp.exec_lines .

c.InteractiveShellApp.exec_lines = [
    "import matplotlib as mpl",
    "mpl.rcParams['font.family'] = 'NanumGothic'"
]

Former always works whatever environment you run your shell script on as it loads the font when your script imports matplotlib .

jmp · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-03 19:15:31Z

1

The font cache shows up in a different place for me (.cache/matplotlib/fontList.cache). And before I actually had three of them in different places somehow :/

maybe try searching for it in your home directory:

find ~/ -name fontList.cache -exec rm {} \;

answered Sep 3, 2015 at 19:15

jmp

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