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pyfonts

a simple and reproducible way of using fonts in matplotlib

Pyfonts logo

In short, pyfonts:

  • allows you to use all fonts from Google Font
  • allows you to use all fonts from Bunny Font (GDPR-compliant alternative to Google Fonts)
  • allows you to use any font from an arbitrary URL
  • is efficient (thanks to its cache system)

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pip install pyfonts


Quick start

The easiest (and recommended) way of using pyfonts is to find the name of a font you like on Google Fonts/Bunny Fonts and pass it to load_google_font()/load_bunny_font():

# mkdocs: render
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from pyfonts import load_google_font

font = load_google_font("Fascinate Inline")

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.text(
   x=0.2,
   y=0.5,
   s="Hey there!",
   size=30,
   font=font # We pass it to the `font` argument
)

# mkdocs: render
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from pyfonts import load_bunny_font

font = load_bunny_font("Barrio")

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.text(
   x=0.2,
   y=0.5,
   s="Hey there!",
   size=30,
   font=font # We pass it to the `font` argument
)

# mkdocs: render
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from pyfonts import load_font

font = load_font("https://github.com/y-sunflower/pyfonts/blob/main/tests/Ultra-Regular.ttf?raw=true")

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.text(
   x=0.2,
   y=0.5,
   s="Hey there!",
   size=30,
   font=font # We pass it to the `font` argument
)

Bold/light fonts

In order to have a bold font, you can use the weight argument that accepts either one of: "thin", "extra-light", "light", "regular","medium", "semi-bold", "bold", "extra-bold", "black", or any number between 100 and 900 (the higher the bolder).

# mkdocs: render
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from pyfonts import load_google_font

font_bold = load_google_font("Roboto", weight="bold")
font_regular = load_google_font("Roboto", weight="regular") # Default
font_light = load_google_font("Roboto", weight="thin")

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
text_params = dict(x=0.2,size=30,)
ax.text(
   y=0.7,
   s="Bold font",
   font=font_bold,
   **text_params
)
ax.text(
   y=0.5,
   s="Regular font",
   font=font_regular,
   **text_params
)
ax.text(
   y=0.3,
   s="Light font",
   font=font_light,
   **text_params
)

Note that not all fonts have different weight and can be set to bold/light.

Italic font

load_google_font() has an italic argument, that can either be True or False (default to False).

# mkdocs: render
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from pyfonts import load_google_font

font = load_google_font("Roboto", italic=True)

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.text(
   x=0.2,
   y=0.5,
   s="This text is in italic",
   size=30,
   font=font
)

Note that not all fonts can be set to italic.

Set font globally

If you also want to change the default font used for e.g. the axis labels, legend entries, titles, etc., you can use set_default_font():

# mkdocs: render
from pyfonts import set_default_font, load_google_font

font = load_google_font("Fascinate Inline")
set_default_font(font) # Sets font for all text

fig, ax = plt.subplots()

x = [0, 1, 2, 3]
y = [x**2 for x in x]

# x+y tick labels, legend entries, title etc.
# will all be in Fascinate Inline
ax.plot(x, y, "-o", label='y = x²')
ax.set_title('Simple Line Chart')
ax.text(x=0, y=5, s="Hello world", size=20)
ax.legend()

# change the font for a specific element as usual
ax.set_xlabel("x values", font=load_google_font("Roboto"), size=15)