# How to annotate a groupedbar-plot?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-annotate-a-groupedbar-plot/46938>\
**Category:** Visualization\
**Tags:** question, plotting\
**Created:** [September 19, 2020, 9:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-annotate-a-groupedbar-plot/46938 "2020-09-19T21:37:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Parazetamol](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/parazetamol/32/52125_2.png) [@Parazetamol](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Parazetamol)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2020, 9:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-annotate-a-groupedbar-plot/46938/1 "2020-09-19T21:37:48Z")

</div>

Hi there, I desperately try to label the individual bars of a groupedbar plot, as in  
[https://matplotlib.org/examples/api/barchart\_demo.html](https://matplotlib.org/examples/api/barchart_demo.html)

I took some code from a former post [https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-bars-side-by-side/6655/12](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-bars-side-by-side/6655/12)

and added

> series\_annotations = [string.(men), string.(women)]

resulting in:

```julia
using StatsPlots

men = [20, 35, 30, 35, 27]
women = [25, 32, 34, 20, 25]
std_men = [2, 3, 4, 1, 2]
std_women = [3, 5, 2, 3, 3]

groupedbar(
  ["G1", "G2", "G3", "G4", "G5"],
  [men women],
  yerr = [std_men std_women],
  series_annotations = [string.(men), string.(women)]
)

```

which gives a plot with misaligned annotations:  
 ![Screenshot from 2020-09-19 22-17-31](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/6/2/62eef7ed3542b7f7e9207fe1b06d607fd47df600.png)

A second run results in a plot with the top cut off and an error message  
“GKS: Rectangle definition is invalid in routine SET\_VIEWPORT” .  
Please help.

I’m using julia 1.5.1 with StatsPlots 0.14.13 on ubuntu 20.04.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nilshg](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nilshg/32/2283_2.png) [@nilshg](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nilshg)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2020, 4:46pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-annotate-a-groupedbar-plot/46938/2 "2020-09-20T16:46:21Z")

</div>

Turns out my suggestion in the other thread wasn’t very good. I think there are two issues here:

- Placement of annotations in the bar plot with GR backend - there’s an issue on this [here](https://github.com/JuliaPlots/Plots.jl/issues/761)
- The `Rectangle definition` error - there are a bunch of issues related to this (see [here](https://github.com/JuliaPlots/Plots.jl/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+rectangle+definition)), but none of these seem to describe this exact situation (although I’ll admit I haven’t read every single one in full). Might be worth opening another issue with this MWE.

Both issues seem to be GR related, so one thing to try might be just swapping out backends and seeing if that helps.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Parazetamol](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/parazetamol/32/52125_2.png) [@Parazetamol](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Parazetamol)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2020, 5:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-annotate-a-groupedbar-plot/46938/3 "2020-09-20T17:50:11Z")

</div>

Changing to inspectdr and simplifying the labels to enhance visibility in the plot:

```julia
using StatsPlots
inspectdr()

men = [20, 35, 30, 35, 27]
women = [25, 32, 34, 20, 25]
std_men = [2, 3, 4, 1, 2]
std_women = [3, 5, 2, 3, 3]

groupedbar(
         ["G1", "G2", "G3", "G4", "G5"],
         [men women],
         yerr = [std_men std_women],
         series_annotations = string.([0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9])
       )

```

gives:

 ![Screenshot from 2020-09-20 19-47-38](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/8/6/86566aae0bd176c2e256de67826d8f8ffbe92e93.png)

Even worse: G1, G2, … missing, only upper part of errorbars visible …

**Changing to plotly():**

```julia
Error showing value of type Plots.Plot{Plots.PlotlyBackend}:
ERROR: BoundsError: attempt to access 1-element Array{Float64,1} at index [2:3]
Stacktrace:
 [1] throw_boundserror(::Array{Float64,1}, ::Tuple{UnitRange{Int64}}) at ./abstractarray.jl:541
 [2] checkbounds at ./abstractarray.jl:506 [inlined]
 [3] getindex(::Array{Float64,1}, ::UnitRange{Int64}) at ./array.jl:815
 [4] plotly_series_segments(::Plots.Series, ::Dict{Symbol,Any}, ::Array{Float64,1}, ::Array{Float64,1}, ::Nothing, ::Tuple{Float64,Float64}) at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/backends/plotly.jl:785
 [5] plotly_series(::Plots.Plot{Plots.PlotlyBackend}, ::Plots.Series) at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/backends/plotly.jl:545
 [6] plotly_series(::Plots.Plot{Plots.PlotlyBackend}) at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/backends/plotly.jl:863
 [7] plotly_series_json at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/backends/plotly.jl:869 [inlined]
 [8] plotly_html_body(::Plots.Plot{Plots.PlotlyBackend}, ::Nothing) at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/backends/plotly.jl:909
 [9] plotly_html_body at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/backends/plotly.jl:904 [inlined]
 [10] html_body at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/backends/plotly.jl:874 [inlined]
 [11] #standalone_html#347 at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/backends/web.jl:7 [inlined]
 [12] write_temp_html(::Plots.Plot{Plots.PlotlyBackend}) at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/backends/web.jl:36
 [13] standalone_html_window at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/backends/web.jl:49 [inlined]
 [14] _display at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/backends/plotly.jl:950 [inlined]
 [15] display(::Plots.PlotsDisplay, ::Plots.Plot{Plots.PlotlyBackend}) at /home/os/.julia/packages/Plots/GDtiZ/src/output.jl:150
 [16] display(::Any) at ./multimedia.jl:328
 [17] #invokelatest#1 at ./essentials.jl:710 [inlined]
 [18] invokelatest at ./essentials.jl:709 [inlined]
 [19] print_response(::IO, ::Any, ::Bool, ::Bool, ::Any) at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.5/REPL/src/REPL.jl:238
 [20] print_response(::REPL.AbstractREPL, ::Any, ::Bool, ::Bool) at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.5/REPL/src/REPL.jl:223
 [21] (::REPL.var"#do_respond#54"{Bool,Bool,REPL.var"#64#73"{REPL.LineEditREPL,REPL.REPLHistoryProvider},REPL.LineEditREPL,REPL.LineEdit.Prompt})(::Any, ::Any, ::Any) at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.5/REPL/src/REPL.jl:822
 [22] #invokelatest#1 at ./essentials.jl:710 [inlined]
 [23] invokelatest at ./essentials.jl:709 [inlined]
 [24] run_interface(::REPL.Terminals.TextTerminal, ::REPL.LineEdit.ModalInterface, ::REPL.LineEdit.MIState) at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.5/REPL/src/LineEdit.jl:2355
 [25] run_frontend(::REPL.LineEditREPL, ::REPL.REPLBackendRef) at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.5/REPL/src/REPL.jl:1144
 [26] (::REPL.var"#38#42"{REPL.LineEditREPL,REPL.REPLBackendRef})() at ./task.jl:356

```

☹

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nilshg](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nilshg/32/2283_2.png) [@nilshg](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nilshg)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2020, 7:44pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-annotate-a-groupedbar-plot/46938/4 "2020-09-20T19:44:13Z")

</div>

The Plotly issue is because you are incorrectly supplying the vector of annotations - if you replace the comma with a semicolon you get something similar to the InspectDR output.

I haven’t been able to figure out a way of specifying the `series_annotations` in a way that don’t lead to strings being placed on all edges of the bars, which seems buggy to me. Unfortunately, `groupedbar` also doesn’t have a docstring so it’s hard to be sure about how this _should_ work. I’d file an issue!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hdavid16](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/hdavid16/32/11531_2.png) [@hdavid16](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/hdavid16)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2021, 6:21am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-annotate-a-groupedbar-plot/46938/5 "2021-08-20T06:21:13Z")

</div>

I’m guessing that removing the comma in the `series_annotation` didn’t work.

If you need an alternative, try Makie.jl

[https://makie.juliaplots.org/dev/examples/plotting\_functions/barplot/index.html](https://makie.juliaplots.org/dev/examples/plotting_functions/barplot/index.html)

[https://makie.juliaplots.org/dev/examples/plotting\_functions/errorbars/index.html](https://makie.juliaplots.org/dev/examples/plotting_functions/errorbars/index.html)