Save figure as a pdf file in Python

This post introduces how to save a figure as a pdf file in Python using Matplotlib.

When using savefig, the file format can be specified by the extension:

savefig('foo.png')
savefig('foo.pdf')

The first line of code above will give a rasterized  output and the second will give a vectorized output.

In addition, you’ll find that pylab leaves a generous, often undesirable, whitespace around the image. You can remove it with:

savefig('foo.png', bbox_inches='tight')

You can also use  figure to set dpi of the figure:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig  = plt.figure(figsize=(1,4),facecolor = 'red', dpi=100)
plt.savefig('test.png', dpi=100)

plt.show(fig)