Text alignment options in Matplotlib - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Text alignment options

📖 Scenario: You are creating a simple plot to display a message. You want to control how the text is aligned inside the plot area to make it look neat and clear.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to use horizontalalignment and verticalalignment options in matplotlib's text() function to position text inside a plot.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a matplotlib plot

Add text with specific horizontal and vertical alignment

Display the plot with the aligned text

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Text alignment is important in data visualization to make charts and graphs clear and easy to read.

💼 Career

Data scientists and analysts often customize text placement in plots to create professional reports and presentations.

1

Create a basic plot

Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt and create a figure and axis using plt.subplots(). Store the result in variables fig and ax.

Matplotlib

# Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# Create a figure and axis with plt.subplots()
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use import matplotlib.pyplot as plt to import the plotting library.

Use plt.subplots() to create a figure and axis.

2

Set up text position and alignment variables

Create variables x and y with values 0.5 and 0.5 respectively to represent the center of the plot. Also create variables h_align and v_align with values 'center' and 'center' to set horizontal and vertical alignment.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
# Create x and y variables with 0.5
# Create h_align and v_align variables with 'center'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Set x and y to 0.5 to place text in the middle.

Set h_align and v_align to 'center' to align text in the center horizontally and vertically.

3

Add text with alignment options

Use ax.text() to add the text 'Hello, aligned text!' at position (x, y) with horizontalalignment=h_align and verticalalignment=v_align. Also set fontsize=14.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
x = 0.5
y = 0.5
h_align = 'center'
v_align = 'center'
# Add text 'Hello, aligned text!' at (x, y) with horizontalalignment=h_align and verticalalignment=v_align
# Set fontsize=14
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use ax.text() with parameters x, y, and the text string.

Pass horizontalalignment=h_align and verticalalignment=v_align to align the text.

Set fontsize=14 for better visibility.

4

Display the plot

Use plt.show() to display the plot with the aligned text.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
x = 0.5
y = 0.5
h_align = 'center'
v_align = 'center'
ax.text(x, y, 'Hello, aligned text!', horizontalalignment=h_align, verticalalignment=v_align, fontsize=14)
# Display the plot
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Call plt.show() to open the plot window and see the text.