Matplotlib savefig into different pages of a PDF

Question

I have a lengthy plot, composed o several horizontal subplots organized into a column.

When I call fig.savefig('what.pdf'), the resulting output file shows all the plots crammed onto a single page.

Question: is there a way to tell savefig to save on any number (possibly automatically determined) of pdf pages?

I'd rather avoid multiple files and then os.system('merge ...'), if possible.

Answer 1

I haven't tried myself, but in the matplolib faq there are some instruction to save plots in pdf in several pages.

• FAQ http://matplotlib.org/faq/howto_faq.html#save-multiple-plots-to-one-pdf-file
• Example http://matplotlib.org/examples/pylab_examples/multipage_pdf.html

Answer 2

I suspect that there is a more elegant way to do this, but one option is to use tempfiles or StringIO to avoid making traditional files on the system and then you can piece those together.