How do I get the position of text from a PyPlot plot?

Question

We can specify the position of text in PyPlot, but how can we read the position of text? For example, I want to know the coordinates of the Figure's title or the Axes X and Y labels.

Pseudo-code:

x, y = PyPlotObject.get_position()

I'm also interested in related text properties such as size, scale and rotation.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

x1 = np.linspace(0.0, 5.0, 100)
y1 = np.cos(2 * np.pi * x1) * np.exp(-x1)

fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(5, 3))
fig.subplots_adjust(bottom=0.15, left=0.2)
ax.plot(x1, y1)
ax.set_xlabel('Time (s)')
ax.set_ylabel('Damped oscillation (V)')
ax.set_title('Oscillation')

plt.show()

This command ax.xaxis.get_label().get_position() will give you the following output: (0.5, 15.72222222222223). Here we see the 0.5 on the x axis (in the middle of the plot). But for the Y coordinate we see something else, I am guessing this is a value that is in another axis coordinate. To transform the 15.7 to a value that is between 0-1, I think you would need to see what the renderer is doing — Tino D
– Tino D, Commented Oct 14 at 8:55
Thanks! That works for an axis label. But what's the corresponding method for a Figure.title? — PodHunter
– PodHunter, Commented Oct 14 at 16:19

Matt Hall · Accepted Answer · 2025-10-15 09:55:18Z

1

You are already using the so-called 'object oriented' interface for Matplotlib, which is a good start. Once you have made the plot in your example, you can get at its objects, and then at their properties.

For example:

xlabel = ax.xaxis.get_label()
xlabel.get_position()

Yields (0.5, np.float64(24.0)). If you explore this xlabel object, you can see the object contains the position and the text, as well as other things like font size — try xlabel.get_fontsize() or xlabel.get_rotation().

You can get at the title's properties in a similar way, e.g. position:

ax.title.get_position()

answered Oct 15 at 9:55

Matt Hall

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1 Comment

Tino D Oct 15 at 10:53

Do you know by any chance what the 24.0 is? I tested around a bit and it seems to change with the length of the labels. The 0.5 is basically the relative position of the label compared to the start (0.5 -> 50% -> middle of the figure). I played around yesterday with fig.canvas.get_renderer() and could eventually get some values.. not sure however if that's what OP wants

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