The figure layout is not respected when plotting inline in the IPython console

[jnsebgosselin]

As explained in this StackOverflow answer, the ipython magics are enforcing bbox_inches='tight' by default. This means that the following code :

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

plt.close('all')

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
fig.set_size_inches(8,  5)
ax.set_position([0, 0, 1, 1])
ax.plot(np.random.rand(50),  np.random.rand(50))

plt.show()

results in the IPython console when plotting inline as :

>

But, as explicitly specified in my code, what I want is that :

>

This behavior is unacceptable for me when I'm trying to format my figures in a very specific layout for a paper and is the reason why I've never used inline plotting in the past.

To avoid this, one has to override the default magic with :

%config InlineBackend.print_figure_kwargs = {'bbox_inches':None}

As discussed with @ccordoba12, this should be added in the Preferences of the IPython console, under the tab Graphics, in the section Inline backend.

References :

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37864735/matplotlib-and-ipython-notebook-displaying-exactly-the-figure-that-will-be-save
• http://ipython.readthedocs.io/en/stable/interactive/magics.html#magic-matplotlib
• https://matplotlib.org/api/_as_gen/matplotlib.pyplot.savefig.html