How to export plots from matplotlib with transparent background?

Become part of the top 3% of the developers by applying to Toptal https://topt.al/25cXVn

--

Music by Eric Matyas
https://www.soundimage.org
Track title: Peaceful Mind

--

Chapters
00:00 Question
00:41 Accepted answer (Score 262)
01:39 Answer 2 (Score 5)
02:19 Answer 3 (Score 1)
02:44 Thank you

--

Full question
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1585...

Answer 1 links:
[Save plot to image file instead of displaying it using Matplotlib]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9622...
[Using PIL to make all white pixels transparent?]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7657...
[Python PIL: how to make area transparent in PNG?]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4379...

--

Content licensed under CC BY-SA
https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/lice...

--

Tags
#python #matplotlib #plot #transparency

#avk47

ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 288

Use the matplotlib savefig function with the keyword argument transparent=True to save the image as a png file.

In [28]: import numpy as np

In [29]: from matplotlib.pyplot import plot, savefig

In [30]: x = np.linspace(0,6,31)

In [31]: y = np.exp(-0.5*x) * np.sin(x)

In [32]: plot(x, y, 'bo-')
Out[32]: [<matplotlib.lines.Line2D at 0x3f29750>]            

In [33]: savefig('demo.png', transparent=True)

Result:

Of course, that plot doesn't demonstrate the transparency. Here's a screenshot of the PNG file displayed using the ImageMagick display command. The checkerboard pattern is the background that is visible through the transparent parts of the PNG file.

display screenshot

ANSWER 2

Score 5

As a reminder, the plt.savefig() should be written before the plt.show(), otherwise, a transparent image will be created (without the actual plot).

For high-quality images:

plt.savefig('filename.png', format='png', dpi='600', transparent=True)
plt.show()