Figure layout

Assembling and manipulating the figure itself, rather than any one axes: sizing and DPI, manual and automatic margins, multi-cell subplot spans, label alignment across a grid, figure-space text and legends, a multi-figure Report, and clearing/reusing a Figure.

The Grouping axes section below covers fig.group() and the GroupLayout builder – drawing labeled boxes around clusters of related panels, and describing a whole grid of them declaratively instead of hand-slicing one big array.

GridSpec row/column spans

subplots_adjust

Aligning labels across a grid

Figure-space text

Resizing a figure after creation

Clearing and reusing a figure

GridSpec margins

Figure-level legend

Combining figures into a Report

Figure title and shared axis labels

Mixed subplot grid shapes

Orienting yourself in an unfamiliar figure

Drilling into one panel with ax.print_summary()

save(): dpi, transparent, format, and file-like targets

Sizing by the subplot, not the figure

Grouping axes

fig.group() draws a labeled box around a set of axes – a cluster of related panels in a larger grid, or a single one worth calling out – without a separate figure or a caption pointing back to it. The box clears each axes’ own tick labels, axis labels, and title, not just its bare plot rect; tight_layout() reserves margin for a group whose title faces the grid’s own outer edge, the same way it already does for a suptitle/colorbar/figure legend. fig.group_spacing() reserves extra room between subplots for group boxes at interior boundaries, where no title faces the boundary and nothing widens it automatically otherwise – without discarding tight_layout()’s own margins the way subplots_adjust() would.