# Arrows for annotation in Makie.jl

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/arrows-for-annotation-in-makie-jl/108374>\
**Category:** Visualization\
**Tags:** plotting, makie, arrow\
**Created:** [January 5, 2024, 8:18am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/arrows-for-annotation-in-makie-jl/108374 "2024-01-05T08:18:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nari](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nari/32/46452_2.png) [@nari](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nari)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2024, 8:18am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/arrows-for-annotation-in-makie-jl/108374/1 "2024-01-05T08:18:55Z")

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Makie.jl has [arrows](https://docs.makie.org/stable/reference/plots/arrows/), which are suitable for illustrating vector fields, and annotations seem to be out of their intended use.

If we want to annotate with arrows like [matplotlib’s anotations](https://matplotlib.org/stable/users/explain/text/annotations.html#sphx-glr-users-explain-text-annotations-py), what is the best way in Makie.jl?

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**Author:** ![jules](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/41988e/32.png) [@jules](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jules)\
**Post date:** [January 5, 2024, 11:24am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/arrows-for-annotation-in-makie-jl/108374/2 "2024-01-05T11:24:35Z")

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There’s currently no dedicated function for this in Makie. I’ve recently started working on one, but it will still take a while. If we want approximately as much flexibility as matplotlib for this, there’s a lot of ground to cover. I’m still not quite sure what features I want exactly.

You can of course make an arrow out of a `lines` and `scatter`, it’s just a little bit of work to get the marker rotation right in screen space, and small things like that.

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**Author:** ![nari](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nari/32/46452_2.png) [@nari](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nari)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2024, 1:29am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/arrows-for-annotation-in-makie-jl/108374/3 "2024-01-07T01:29:59Z")

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I could actually achieve my desired outcome by simply drawing an arrowhead using `poly` and placing it on the line’s end through rotate and translate.

I believe it would be valuable to have a feature for effortlessly adding basic arrows with annotations, and I appreciate your efforts in that direction. Thanks!

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**Author:** ![hz-xiaxz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/hz-xiaxz/32/209585_2.png) [@hz-xiaxz](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/hz-xiaxz)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2025, 2:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/arrows-for-annotation-in-makie-jl/108374/4 "2025-04-29T14:50:07Z")

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Hi, sorry for the noise. Can I get a direction to the status of this work now?

EDIT: is it here [Annotate recipe by jkrumbiegel · Pull Request #4891 · MakieOrg/Makie.jl · GitHub](https://github.com/MakieOrg/Makie.jl/pull/4891)?

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**Author:** ![jules](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/41988e/32.png) [@jules](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jules)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2025, 4:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/arrows-for-annotation-in-makie-jl/108374/5 "2025-04-29T16:37:30Z")

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Yep that’s it, you can try it out if you want and give feedback in the PR