Annotation does not appear in matplotlib plot

Question

The annotation "test" displays if I run the following code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.figure()
ax = plt.gca()
ax.annotate("Test", xy=(0.2, 0.2))

However, the exact same code will not display the annotation if I call plt.plot() instead of plt.figure():

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.plot()
ax = plt.gca()
ax.annotate("Test", xy=(0.2, 0.2))

Why does the second code block not show the annotation?

Answer 1

In the first example, calling figure() sets xlim and ylim to [0,1] with the text within the domain, at [.2,.2].

In the second example the annotated test is outside the xlim and ylim. They are set automatically to [-.06,.06] (at least on my machine).

In the second example, simply invoke

ax.set_xlim(-.4,.4)
ax.set_xlim(-.4,.4)

and the annotation will appear in the figure.