Using matplotlib, is it possible to set properties for all subplots on a figure at once?

Question

Using matplotlib (with Python), is it possible to set properties for all subplots on a figure at once?

I've created a figure with multiple subplots, and I currently have something like this:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

listItems1 = np.arange(0, 100)
listItems8 = np.arange(0, 100)
listItems11 = np.arange(0, 100)
figure1 = plt.figure(1)

# First graph on Figure 1
graphA = figure1.add_subplot(2, 1, 1)
graphA.plot(listItems1, listItems8, label='Legend Title')
graphA.legend(loc='upper right', fontsize='10')
graphA.grid(True)
plt.xticks(range(0, len(listItems1) + 1, 36000), rotation='20', fontsize='7', color='white', ha='right')
plt.xlabel('Time')
plt.ylabel('Title Text')

# Second Graph on Figure 1
graphB = figure1.add_subplot(2, 1, 2)
graphB.plot(listItems1, listItems11, label='Legend Title')
graphB.legend(loc='upper right', fontsize='10')
graphB.grid(True)
plt.xticks(range(0, len(listItems1) + 1, 36000), rotation='20', fontsize='7', color='white', ha='right')
plt.xlabel('Time')
plt.ylabel('Title Text 2')

plt.show()

Question, is there a way to set any or all of those properties at once? I'm going to have 6 different subplots on one figure, and it's a bit tedious to keep copy/pasting the same "xticks" settings and "legend" settings over and over again.

Is there some kind of "figure1.legend(..." kind of thing?

Thanks. First post for me. Hello world! ;)

Answer 1

I would suggest using a for loop:

for grph in [graphA, graphB]:
    grph.#edit features here

You can also structure the for loop differently depending on how you want to do this, e.g.

graphAry = [graphA, graphB]
for ind in range(len(graphAry)):
    grph = graphAry[ind]
    grph.plot(listItems1, someList[ind])
#etc

The nice thing about subplots is that you can use a for loop to plot them too!

for ind in range(6):
    ax = subplot(6,1,ind)
    #do all your plotting code once!

You'll have to think about how to organize the data you want to plot to make use of the indexing. Make sense?

Whenever I do multiple subplots I think about how to use a for loop for them.

Answer 2

If your subplots are actually sharing an axis/some axes, you may be interested in specifying the sharex=True and/or sharey=True kwargs to subplots.

See John Hunter explaining more in this video. It can give your graph a much cleaner look and reduce code repetition.