Tight_Layout: Attribute Error . 'AxesSubplot' object has no attribute 'tight_layout'

Question

I want to plot a stacked-bar graph with data coming from two separate dataframes in pandas (My_means and My_stds). I am using Python 3.7.

The plotting call works fine, however, the labels are cut-off. Setting tight_layout does not help me and generates an "Attribute Error: 'AxesSubplot' object has no attribute 'tight_layout'". What does this mean and how do I overcome this?

I haven´t found any problems related to this error, so I assume I am doing something rather stupid...

Here is my code:

My_means= ratios.pivot_table('Data', 'Sample ID', 'User ID', aggfunc= np.mean)
My_stds= ratios.pivot_table('Data', 'Sample ID', 'User ID', aggfunc= np.std)
plot_it = My_means.plot(kind='bar', color=stack_cols, stacked=True, yerr=My_stds, capsize=3, title='Just some graph')
plot_it.tight_layout()

Thanks for your help! Jazz

You can't apply tight_layout on an axes, you ned to do it on a figure. Most often done using plt.tight_layout() — DavidG
– DavidG, Commented Nov 20, 2018 at 10:37
Hi David, thanks for the quick reply. I thought the way I do it, plot_it would be my figure. However, it seems that it isnt... (new to coding, sorry). How can I get it as my figure object so that tight_layout would work for me? — JazzyJazz
– JazzyJazz, Commented Nov 20, 2018 at 10:48
plot_it is the axes, not the figure. If you have done import matplotlib.pyplot as plt then you can simply do plt.tight_layout() — DavidG
– DavidG, Commented Nov 20, 2018 at 10:52

DavidG · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-20 10:57:55Z

8

My_means.plot(…) returns an axes object. Whereas tight_layout requires a figure object. There are a number of different approaches you can use:

Perhaps the simplest one would be to use plt.tight_layout() which works on the current figure:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# Your plotting code here
plt.tight_layout()

Alternatively, you can create the figure and axes beforehand, pass the axes as an argument to plot and then use tight_layout on the figure object:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
plot_it = My_means.plot(kind='bar', ax=ax, …)

fig.tight_layout()

answered Nov 20, 2018 at 10:57

DavidG

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