Hide tick label values but keep axis labels

Question

I have this image:

plt.plot(sim_1['t'],sim_1['V'],'k')
plt.ylabel('V')
plt.xlabel('t')
plt.show()

I want to hide the numbers; if I use:

plt.axis('off')

...I get this image:

It also hide the labels, V and t. How can I keep the labels while hiding the values?

tmdavison · Accepted Answer · 2021-09-14T09:51:26.110

201

If you use the matplotlib object-oriented approach, this is a simple task using ax.set_xticklabels() and ax.set_yticklabels(). Here we can just set them to an empty list to remove any labels:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Create Figure and Axes instances
fig,ax = plt.subplots(1)

# Make your plot, set your axes labels
ax.plot(sim_1['t'],sim_1['V'],'k')
ax.set_ylabel('V')
ax.set_xlabel('t')

# Turn off tick labels
ax.set_yticklabels([])
ax.set_xticklabels([])

plt.show()

If you also want to remove the tick marks as well as the labels, you can use ax.set_xticks() and ax.set_yticks() and set those to an empty list as well:

ax.set_xticks([])
ax.set_yticks([])

edited Sep 14 '21 at 09:51

answered May 05 '16 at 08:16

tmdavison

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17

Works great for removing tick labels, but you still get the tick marks... – Andrew Schreiber Aug 04 '17 at 01:05
3

To remove tick marks, also add `ax.set_yticks([])`. – Mitchell van Zuylen Dec 23 '20 at 14:58

score 111 · Answer 2 · answered May 04 '17 at 11:33

111

Without a subplots, you can universally remove the ticks like this:

plt.xticks([])
plt.yticks([])

answered May 04 '17 at 11:33

Noel Evans

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This removes both the tick marks and the tick labels - exactly what I wanted! – Mead Apr 08 '21 at 10:56

score 58 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 31 '18 at 10:14

58

This works great. Just paste this before plt.show():

plt.gca().axes.get_yaxis().set_visible(False)

Boom.

answered Mar 31 '18 at 10:14

MRT

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Thanks, this works great. In the other cases ticks are preserved (because tick direction is out by default) – user140259 Nov 16 '18 at 03:47
Unlike answers like ax.set_xticklabels([]), this one works perfectly for the following case: one uses subplots with sharex option and wants to delete ticks only for one of the subplots. – Mikhail Lisakov Dec 16 '18 at 14:13
Great! And plt.gca().axes.get_xaxis().set_visible(False) to also get rid of the x axis labels and ticks. – fbparis Feb 11 '19 at 04:25
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or if you already have the ax object, `ax.xaxis.set_visible(False)` – SpinUp Mar 04 '19 at 22:26
2

@spinup `ax.axes.get_xaxis().set_visible(False)` also works – Blupon Sep 26 '19 at 11:41
1

@filip I'm glad it helped :) – MRT Feb 17 '20 at 18:55

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 29 '20 at 11:41

6

to remove tickmarks entirely use:

ax.set_yticks([])
ax.set_xticks([])

otherwise ax.set_yticklabels([]) and ax.set_xticklabels([]) will keep tickmarks.

answered Jan 29 '20 at 11:41

Poe Dator

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When I try `ax.set_yticks([], [])`, I get the following warning: "MatplotlibDeprecationWarning: Passing the minor parameter of set_xticks() positionally is deprecated since Matplotlib 3.2; the parameter will become keyword-only two minor releases later." What's the right alternative? – Rylan Schaeffer Apr 23 '20 at 15:45
@RylanSchaeffer, in your example `ax.set_yticks([], [])` you are passing 2 empty lists which causes error. Why doing that? See the command manual. If the first argument should not be passed positionally, pass it with keyword: `ax.set_yticks(ticks=[])`. – Poe Dator May 12 '20 at 06:26

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered May 01 '20 at 19:32

3

plt.gca().axes.yaxis.set_ticklabels([])

answered May 01 '20 at 19:32

Nic Scozzaro

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score 2 · Answer 6 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

Not sure this is the best way, but you can certainly replace the tick labels like this:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
x = range(10)
y = range(10)
plt.plot(x,y)
plt.xticks(x," ")
plt.show()

In Python 3.4 this generates a simple line plot with no tick labels on the x-axis. A simple example is here: http://matplotlib.org/examples/ticks_and_spines/ticklabels_demo_rotation.html

This related question also has some better suggestions: Hiding axis text in matplotlib plots

I'm new to python. Your mileage may vary in earlier versions. Maybe others can help?

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered May 18 '21 at 15:06

This also works.

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.yaxis.set_major_locator(plt.NullLocator())
ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(plt.NullFormatter())

see this book for nice tips for customizing ticks https://jakevdp.github.io/PythonDataScienceHandbook/04.10-customizing-ticks.html

Hide tick label values but keep axis labels

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