How Can I Save a Matplotlib Plot to an Image File?

Plotting to Image Files

When using Matplotlib's pyplot interface, the plt.show() function displays a figure in a graphical user interface (GUI) window. However, there may be instances when you need to save the figure as an image file for later use or sharing.

Method:

To save the plot to an image file, use the plt.savefig() function. This function takes the file name as its first argument. The second argument, bbox_inches='tight', ensures there is no unwanted whitespace around the saved image.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Plot data
plt.plot([1, 2, 3], [1, 4, 9])

# Save plot to file
plt.savefig('foo.png', bbox_inches='tight')

# Show plot (optional)
plt.show()

File Format:

You can specify the file format by using the file extension. For instance, .png will save the plot as a Portable Network Graphic, while .pdf will save it as a Portable Document Format vector image.

Note:

If you wish to display the plot in a GUI window in addition to saving it to a file, remember to call plt.show() after calling plt.savefig(). Otherwise, the saved image will be empty.

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