# Latex font not showing in pyplot
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-font-not-showing-in-pyplot/19996
**Category:** General Usage
**Created:** [January 23, 2019, 5:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-font-not-showing-in-pyplot/19996 "2019-01-23T17:16:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ferran\_Mazzanti](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Ferran_Mazzanti)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2019, 5:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-font-not-showing-in-pyplot/19996/1 "2019-01-23T17:16:38Z")
Dear all,
I’m trying to use pyplot to build some plots for my presentations, but fail to make it understand that latex text must use standard latex fonts. If you run the following code to generate the plot, look at the very last ‘text(…)’ line, and you’ll see that the text is not written with the standard math font
```julia
E_r12r6_a60 = [
128 3.17163262103601652E-004 3.04754234834055342E-005
256 3.55329500041287063E-004 5.43034214474548817E-005
384 2.08699801081502499E-004 4.84644066530111190E-005
512 4.68851824394179912E-005 3.76658372340429136E-005
640 -6.66964350400179120E-005 1.91205674836690072E-005
768 -5.74604545388544808E-005 4.75236802203928354E-005
896 -1.97918380296343270E-004 5.59914036193412843E-005
]
# V = r9 - r6, as=60
#
E_r9r6_a60 = [
384 1.21280095783323673E-004 1.15049519218257177E-005
512 3.56601262113847618E-005 1.72789313480468575E-005
640 8.86063423189557728E-005 2.55024026484808185E-005
768 -1.12896944851750277E-004 2.82911400460744625E-005
898 -1.04664038748627936E-004 4.26086017518738101E-005
1024 -2.56311096809557603E-005 9.35155139386825067E-005
1280 -3.23258472327046711E-004 9.07936725792574752E-005
]
# V = r12, as=60
#
E_r12_a60 = [
256 1.81480315775224983E-004 9.73734651855710067E-006
384 1.36113406511794972E-004 1.55201725330955719E-005
512 8.09446597061414430E-005 2.06775684668961166E-005
640 5.89765443188127326E-005 2.88503761209600540E-005
768 -7.78756532543384224E-005 3.87389923780498535E-005
898 -2.51162620852888826E-004 8.09722706303436795E-005
1024 -2.07016022574518994E-004 9.01942302802278807E-005
1280 -1.56478388392424709E-004 1.05340438481837134E-004
1536 -2.39733040213125124E-004 1.41151925834172352E-004
]
# columns to plot
x1 = E_r12r6_a60[:,1];
y1 = E_r12r6_a60[:,2];
e1 = E_r12r6_a60[:,3];
x2 = E_r9r6_a60[:,1];
y2 = E_r9r6_a60[:,2];
e2 = E_r9r6_a60[:,3];
x3 = E_r12_a60[:,1];
y3 = E_r12_a60[:,2];
e3 = E_r12_a60[:,3];
# ----- max and min X to plot a 0 line
XX = vcat(x1,x2,x3)
xmin = minimum(XX)
xmax = maximum(XX)
ax = gca() # Get the handle of the current axis
ax = gca()
# log scale on the Y axis
# ax[:set_xscale]("log") # Set the x axis to a logarithmic scaleå
#
ax[:set_yscale]("linear") # Set the x axis to a logarithmic scale
ax[:set_ylim]([-0.0004,0.0004])
ax[:set_xlim]([300.,950.])
ax[:set_ylim]([-0.0003,0.0002])
# Title of the plot
#
# rc("font",family="serif") # "monospace" "sans"
font_size_title = 16
#titlefont = font("Times",font_size_title)
#titlefont = font("Times", 14)
title("Energy of the Droplets",fontsize=font_size_title)
# First the isolated points, with the color. s=20 is the size of the point
#
point_size = 30
line_width = 1
line_style = "dashed" #solid"
scatter(x1,y1,s=point_size,color="red",label="r12-r6")
plot(x1, y1, linestyle=line_style, linewidth=line_width, color="red")
errorbar(x1,y1,yerr=e1,fmt="r ")
scatter(x2,y2,s=point_size,color="blue",label="r9-r6")
plot(x2, y2, linestyle=line_style, linewidth=line_width, color="blue")
errorbar(x2,y2,yerr=e2,fmt="b ")
scatter(x3,y3,s=point_size,color="green",label="r12")
plot(x3, y3, linestyle=line_style, linewidth=line_width,color="green")
errorbar(x3,y3,yerr=e3,fmt="b ")
# plot the zero line
#
plot([xmin,xmax],[0.,0.])
font_labels_size = 14;
setp(ax[:get_xticklabels](),fontsize=font_labels_size,color="black") # X Axis font formatting
setp(ax[:get_yticklabels](),fontsize=font_labels_size,color="black") # Y Axis font formatting
font1 = Dict("family"=>"family",#family",
"color"=>"black",
"weight"=>"normal",
"size"=>16)
xlabel("N",fontdict=font1)
ylabel(L"E(N)-E_{trap}",fontdict=font1)
# handletextpad controls the sapce between the symbol and the label in the legend
location = "upper right"
location = "lower left"
legend(fontsize=14,handletextpad=0.5,loc=location,frameon=false) # Create a legend of all the existing plots using their labels as names
text(730,0.00012,L"$a=60a_0$",fontsize=24)
```
How can I make it understand that the text in the L"…" form must use the latex standard fonts? I tried installing and using the LaTeXStrings package to no avail…
Thanks in advance,
Ferran.
---
### Author:  [@stillyslalom](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stillyslalom)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2019, 5:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-font-not-showing-in-pyplot/19996/2 "2019-01-23T17:38:40Z")
```julia
import PyPlot.rc
rc("text", usetex=true)
```
---
### Author:  [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2019, 7:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-font-not-showing-in-pyplot/19996/3 "2019-01-23T19:37:52Z")
In particular, note that Matplotlib by default uses its own [`mathtext` equation renderer](https://matplotlib.org/users/mathtext.html#mathtext-tutorial), not LaTeX. However, with some Matplotlib backends, you can [tell it to use TeX instead](https://matplotlib.org/users/usetex.html) with the `usetex` setting. You can also use the `mathtext.fontset` to change the default `mathtext` font.
---
### Author:  [@Ferran\_Mazzanti](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Ferran_Mazzanti)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-font-not-showing-in-pyplot/19996/4 "2019-01-23T20:23:36Z")
Thank you for the tips 🙂
However, if I include this command, I do not get the plot to plot:
```julia
using PyPlot
import PyPlot.rc
rc("text",usetex=true)
plot(rand(20),rand(20))
```
produces
```julia
1-element Array{PyCall.PyObject,1}:
PyObject
```
and no plot whatsoever. I tried to add pygui(true) just before the using PyPlot line, but that doe snot solve the problem of not showing up, either…
---
### Author:  [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2019, 11:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/latex-font-not-showing-in-pyplot/19996/5 "2019-01-23T23:00:07Z")
If you read the page I linked, you’ll see that usetex doesn’t work with any GUI backends.