How to change matplotlib backends

Question

I am struggling with the following issue. I need to generate reports that consists of a collection of charts. All these charts, except one, are made using Matplotlib default backend (TkAgg). One chart needs to be made using the Cairo backend, the reason is that I am plotting an igraph graph and that can only be plotted using Cairo.

The issue is that I cannot change backends on the fly, for example the following does not work:
matplotlib.pyplot.switch_backend('cairo.png') (I know that the switch_backend functionality is experimental)

and I have also tried matplotlib.use("cairo.png") but this leads to import problems as the matplotlib.use("cairo.png") statement should come before importing matplotlib.pyplot. but I need two different backends over the course of the life of the script.

So my question is does someone have a code snippet that shows how to switch the backend in Matplotlib?

Thanks so much!

UPDATE: I have written a snippet that loads matplotlib, shows the default backend, unloads matplotlib, reloads it and changes the backend:

import matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import sys
print matplotlib.pyplot.get_backend()

modules = []
for module in sys.modules:
    if module.startswith('matplotlib'):
        modules.append(module)

for module in modules:
    sys.modules.pop(module)

import matplotlib
matplotlib.use("cairo.png")
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

print matplotlib.pyplot.get_backend()

but is this really the way to do it?

UPDATE 2: I had some serious brain freeze yesterday... The simple and most obvious solution is to use the Cairo backend for all charts and not to switch the backend at all :)

UPDATE 3: Actually, it's still an issue so anybody who knows how to dynamically switch matplotlib backends....please post your answer.

Motorcycle

There is pyplot.switch_backends(). It might not work in your case. – Mastiff

Answer 1

Six years later and I came across a similar issue, when trying to decide which backend was available to use.
Note see Caveats - below

This code snippet works well for me:

import matplotlib
gui_env = ['TKAgg','GTKAgg','Qt4Agg','WXAgg']
for gui in gui_env:
    try:
        print("testing", gui)
        matplotlib.use(gui,warn=False, force=True)
        from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
        break
    except:
        continue
print("Using:",matplotlib.get_backend())

Using: GTKAgg

As you can deduce, swapping the backend is as simple as re-importing matplotlib.pyplot after forcing the new backend

matplotlib.use('WXAgg',warn=False, force=True)
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
print("Switched to:",matplotlib.get_backend())

Switched to: WXAgg

For those still having trouble, this code will print out the:
list of Non Gui backends;
the list of Gui backends;
and then attempt to use each Gui backend to see if it is present and functioning.

import matplotlib
gui_env = [i for i in matplotlib.rcsetup.interactive_bk]
non_gui_backends = matplotlib.rcsetup.non_interactive_bk
print ("Non Gui backends are:", non_gui_backends)
print ("Gui backends I will test for", gui_env)
for gui in gui_env:
    print ("testing", gui)
    try:
        matplotlib.use(gui,warn=False, force=True)
        from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
        print ("    ",gui, "Is Available")
        plt.plot([1.5,2.0,2.5])
        fig = plt.gcf()
        fig.suptitle(gui)
        plt.show()
        print ("Using ..... ",matplotlib.get_backend())
    except:
        print ("    ",gui, "Not found")

Caveats: Changes in matplotlib since version 3.3.0

• The first parameter of matplotlib.use has been renamed from arg to backend (only relevant if you pass by keyword).
• The parameter warn of matplotlib.use has been removed. A failure to switch the backend will now always raise an ImportError if force is set; catch that error if necessary.
• All parameters of matplotlib.use except the first one are now keyword-only.

Bugs

Thanks! This worked great helping me find the appropriate back-end for this example: #11875267 – Sphygmomanometer

Rolf of Saxony, LOL very helpful, I still get responses on Ubuntu and Android post from nearly a decade ago. – Sphygmomanometer

The warn=False argument is no longer available. – Plaza

@Plaza Noted - thanks. Caveats added. – Bugs

Had to say thanks. You have saved me a ton of work! – Onepiece

@Onepiece Great news, then my work is done ;) – Bugs

Answer 2

There is an "experimental" feature :

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.switch_backend('newbackend')

taken from matplotlib doc.

Switch the default backend to newbackend. This feature is experimental, and is only expected to work switching to an image backend. Eg, if you have a bunch of PostScript scripts that you want to run from an interactive ipython session, you may want to switch to the PS backend before running them to avoid having a bunch of GUI windows popup. If you try to interactively switch from one GUI backend to another, you will explode. Calling this command will close all open windows.

Otocyst

Unrecognized backend string "newbackend". What should I do? – Psalmist

@Psalmist Replace 'newbackend' with a GUI backend such as 'Qt4Agg' – Sorption

Answer 3

Why not just use the reload built-in function (importlib.reload in Python 3)?

import matplotlib
matplotlib.use('agg')

matplotlib = reload(matplotlib)
matplotlib.use('cairo.png')

Pentheam

As in you can't reload matplotlib and matplotlib.pyplot? Or are you just saying that my code snipped is incomplete? – Pentheam

Hmm. Might have actually been a quirk of IPython. Seems to work well in the regular console. – Masquerade

I think this is an example, that shows, that it does not work: python -c "import matplotlib.pyplot as plt; import matplotlib; from importlib import reload; matplotlib = reload(matplotlib); matplotlib.use('Agg')" Is that right? – Intracardiac

Answer 4

So I am not completely sure if this is what you are looking for.

You can change your backend through the matplotlibrc file which contains certain configurations for your matplotlib.

In your script you can put:

matplotlib.rcParams['backend'] = 'TkAgg' 

or something like that to switch between backends.

Fungicide

Indeed, you can specify the backend in your rcParams dictionary but that does not solve the problem of switching from one backend to another one. – Motorcycle

you may also set the default backend in config file which is picked up by matplotlib: ~/.config/matplotlib/matplotlibrc – Peewit

Answer 5

If you are using an IPython console (including within Spyder) you can use built-in magic commands to quickly switch backends, e.g.:

%matplotlib qt

Get a list of available backends to use with the command:

%matplotlib --list

Available matplotlib backends: ['tk', 'gtk', 'gtk3', 'wx', 'qt4', 'qt5', 'qt', 'osx', 'nbagg', 'notebook', 'agg', 'svg', 'pdf', 'ps', 'inline', 'ipympl', 'widget']

Alverta

Answer 6

Extra Info

Although everyone show their own favorite back-end, it's quite messy to figure out what you need to install and what the requirements are. At least when you try to understand the generally confusing and technocratic documentation. Today I have made several experiments and think I have found the most simple solutions for each back-end to be able to plot with matplotlib in Windows and using Py3.8.5 (without Qt built-in). Here are my findings:

#--------------------------------------
# Installing the matplotlib backends
#--------------------------------------
# https://matplotlib.org/users/installing.html

pip install pycairo                     # [1] Cairo :   GTK3 based backend (replaces: cairocffi)    [1.2 Mb]
#pip install mplcairo                   # [1] Cairo :   Easy & Specific for matplotlib              [1.7 Mb]
#pip install PyQt5                      # [2] Qt5   :   Require: Qt's qmake tool                    []
pip install PySide2                     # [3] Qt5   :   Require: shiboken2 & Clang lib bindings     [136 Mb]
pip install wxPython                    # [4] WxAgg :   ??                                          [18.1 Mb]
pip install tornado                     # [5] WebAgg:   Require: pycurl,twisted,pycares ??          [422 kb]

Here are the links to all those PyPi's or Repos:

[1] https://pypi.org/project/pycairo/       # Requires GTK3+: https://www.gtk.org/
[1] https://pypi.org/project/mplcairo/      # https://github.com/matplotlib/mplcairo
[2] https://pypi.org/project/PyQt5/         # 
[3] https://pypi.org/project/PySide2/       # 
[4] https://pypi.org/project/wxPython/      # https://github.com/wxWidgets/Phoenix/
[4] https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/releases
[5] https://pypi.org/project/tornado/       # https://github.com/tornadoweb/tornado

However, and very surprising given the vast quantities of documentation for using Tcl/Tk and the tkinter packages for python, I was not able to install it, nor find any useful instructions of how to import the the DLL's into python. (For linux this is trivial as you just use the OS package manager apt-get install <tk-what-not>, but this option is not available for windows, nor is there any simple analogue. Here is a list of the many and various binaries that you can get.

[6] http://www.bawt.tcl3d.org/download.html                 # Use Tcl-Pure (no additional packages)
[6] https://www.magicsplat.com/tcl-installer/index.html     # 
[6] https://www.irontcl.com/                                # 
[6] https://www.activestate.com/products/tcl/downloads/     # 
[6] http://tclkits.rkeene.org/fossil/wiki/Downloads         # 
[6] http://kitcreator.rkeene.org/kitcreator                 # 

Perhaps someone can enlighten me as how to get any of these imported into python?

---

What backends are available and where?

Let's enlighten ourselves with the following one-liners:

python.exe -c "import matplotlib as m; help(m);"
python.exe -c "import matplotlib as m; print('I: {}\nN: {}'.format(m.rcsetup.interactive_bk,m.rcsetup.non_interactive_bk));"

# I: ['GTK3Agg', 'GTK3Cairo', 'MacOSX', 'nbAgg', 'Qt4Agg', 'Qt4Cairo', 'Qt5Agg', 'Qt5Cairo', 'TkAgg', 'TkCairo', 'WebAgg', 'WX', 'WXAgg', 'WXCairo']
# N: ['agg', 'cairo', 'pdf', 'pgf', 'ps', 'svg', 'template']

python.exe -c "import matplotlib as m; p=m.get_backend();print('current backend is:',p);"
# agg

python.exe -c "import matplotlib as m; p=m.matplotlib_fname(); print('The matplotlibrc is located at:\n',p);"
# C:\Python38\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\mpl-data\matplotlibrc

Setting the back-end

As the documentation says: There are 3 ways to configure your backend:

1. Setting the rcParams["backend"] (default: 'agg') parameter in your matplotlibrc file
2. Setting the MPLBACKEND environment (shell) variable
3. Using the function matplotlib.use()

Using the backend

Finally, to use your available backend is just a matter of doing this:

import matplotlib 
#matplotlib.use('tkagg', force=True)        # Agg rendering to a Tk canvas
#matplotlib.use('wxcairo', force=True)      # Cairo rendering to a wxWidgets canvas
#matplotlib.use('wxagg', force=True)        # Agg rendering to a wxWidgets canvas
matplotlib.use('webagg', force=True)        # On show() will start a tornado server with an interactive figure.

#matplotlib.use('qt5cairo', force=True)     # Cairo rendering to a Qt5 canvas
#matplotlib.use('qt5agg', force=True)       # Agg rendering to a Qt5 canvas

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

Plaza

This answer is a very useful resource for those using the Windows OS. – Bugs

Answer 7

In my case (Windows 10 + python 3.7), the first answer by @Rolf of Saxony didn't work very well. Instead of trying all the available environments and configuring one of them at the beginning, i.e, just after

    import matplotlib

I had to change the environment from 'Agg' to 'TkAgg' using

    matplotlib.use('TKAgg',warn=False, force=True)

right before the code where I actually plotted, i.e,

    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
    fig = plt.figure()
    # AND SO ON....

Hadj

Answer 8

To permanently change the backend you can use this:

1. First locate the matplotlibrc file:

   import matplotlib
   
   matplotlib.matplotlib_fname()
   # '/Users/serafeim/.matplotlib/matplotlibrc'
   

2. Open the terminal and do:

   cd /Users/serafeim/.matplotlib/
   ls
   

3. Edit the file (if it does not exist use this command: touch matplotlib to create it):

   vim matplotlibrc
   

4. Add this line and save:

   backend: TkAgg
   

Charliecharline

When i put TkAgg in my program it works. But when i add the last line in matplotlibrc and don't specify backend in my program it gives me TypeError. – Pylle

Answer 9

You could also have a different Python process make that plot, possibly with the help of pickle or joblib.

Alroi