# Plots.jl clean scientific formatting

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112>\
**Category:** Visualization\
**Created:** [April 23, 2020, 10:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112 "2020-04-23T22:16:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![DR59](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dr59/32/10087_2.png) [@DR59](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/DR59)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2020, 10:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112/1 "2020-04-23T22:16:17Z")

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Suppose I have a plot p. If I want to change the y-axis to scientific formatting, I can do:

```julia
plot!(p, yformatter = :scientific)

```

Now a tick label that was previously: 30000, becomes 3x10^4.

However I don’t want each single tick label to display, e.g.: 3x10^4, 4x10^4, …

It would be nice to have each tick label display: 3,4,…

and have the “x10^4” at the top of the y-axis. I can’t find an easy option to do this, short of manually annotating the tick labels and adding the “x10^4” as an annotation. Does anybody have a better way?

Thanks a lot in advance!

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**Author:** ![briochemc](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/briochemc/32/4209_2.png) [@briochemc](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/briochemc)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2020, 11:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112/2 "2020-04-23T23:14:36Z")

</div>

I suppose one could use the same strategy as in [UnitfulRecipes.jl](https://github.com/jw3126/UnitfulRecipes.jl). I.e., do a bit of work (with `@printf`?) to extract the right power of 10 for all `y` values (let’s say it’s `14`), divide them by `1e14`, add `" (×10¹⁴)"` to the y-axis label, and reset the `yformatter` value?

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**Author:** ![MA\_Laforge](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ma_laforge/32/385_2.png) [@MA\_Laforge](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/MA_Laforge)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2020, 5:04pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112/3 "2020-04-24T17:04:52Z")

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You might want to try out different plotting backends. Some might already do what you want - though you might have to use backend-specific code to get that to work.

### Example: inspectdr() backend

InspectDR already does scientific notation that way. Actually, it displays using what is called “engineering notation” by default: it only displays powers that are multiples of 3 (.., x10^-6, x10^-3, x10^-0, x10^3, x10^6, …). But you can switch it to real “scientific notation” and display intermediate powers (like x10^4) as well.

Here are a few examples:

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/3/1/31b74a57a0a2e0c62797a9ae601fb0aeb0cf938c.png)

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/e/a/ea47220dc58eae97c9ed29dde1d46b4b8ced2d40.png)

### SI labels

Note that the bottom plot was configured to display time using so-called “SI notation” instead of “engineering notation”. The x-axis label is set to “n” - which, of course is equivalent to x10^-9.

### Configuring axis labels

The bottom-most plot uses a “plot template” called `transientplot()` (defined in src/templates.jl). It is used to overwrite the default “engineering notation” in order to display SI units through the NumericIO.jl module:

```julia-auto
plot.layout[:format_xtick] = TickLabelStyle(NumericIO.UEXPONENT_SI)
plot.layout[:format_ytick] = TickLabelStyle(NumericIO.UEXPONENT_SI)

```

Note that there are other formats available, including different versions of engineering/scientific formats that can display the multiplication factor as one of the following:

- `E-3`
- `x10-3`
- `×10⁻³` (Using UTF8 characters (more aesthetically pleasing)

I prefer the UTF8 notation of course, but some fonts do not include the glyphs for superscript numbers, so you can switch to less aesthetically pleasing alternatives, if need be.

### Configuring axis labels: Part 2

You can also set defaults for how InspectDR displays tick axis labels in Julia’s config file, `~/.julia/config/startup.jl`:

```julia-auto
DEFAULTS_INSPECTDR = Dict(
	:notation_x => :SI, #Change x-axis notation (:SI/:SCI/:ENG)
	:notation_y => :SI, #Change y-axis notation (:SI/:SCI/:ENG)

```

But you have less control using this technique.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mthelm85](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mthelm85/32/224164_2.png) [@mthelm85](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mthelm85)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2020, 5:56pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112/4 "2020-04-24T17:56:15Z")

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> [@DR59](#):
>
> I can’t find an easy option to do this, short of manually annotating the tick labels and adding the “x10^4” as an annotation.

I’m not sure I can think of a better solution to manually annotating the graph for the label at the top of the y axis but I just wanted to point out that the `formatter` keyword argument accepts a function so you could do something like this:

```julia
using Plots

x = 0:20
y = 10_000:500:20_000

y_formatted(y) = y / 1_000

plot(
    x,
    y,
    formatter = y -> y_formatted(y),
    legend = false
)

```

To get this:

![y_formatter](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/8/a/8a9c504da190aac0b2f9554759989a269eac6cb4.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dpsanders](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dpsanders/32/3573_2.png) [@dpsanders](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dpsanders)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2020, 7:12pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112/5 "2020-04-24T19:12:22Z")

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I have always found that confusing. Why not just label the axis as y/10^14?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DR59](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dr59/32/10087_2.png) [@DR59](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/DR59)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2020, 2:32pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112/6 "2020-04-25T14:32:26Z")

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I hadn’t heard of this package. It looks great and I will have a playaround. I sometimes need Nyquist plots, which this looks perfect for. WRT this problem… I’ve already just solved it just using the ‘ugly’ method I proposed.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DR59](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dr59/32/10087_2.png) [@DR59](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/DR59)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2020, 2:34pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112/7 "2020-04-25T14:34:32Z")

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That’s a good idea in general. I never think of doing that due to…cognitive inertia?

In this particular case, I have a specific “weird” setup that precludes this solution. I have a grid of plots. Each element of the grid has a different /10^x. I only want to explicitly write the x-axis and y-axis labels on one of the grid elements. So I’d like the y-labels to be the same for each grid element.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DR59](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dr59/32/10087_2.png) [@DR59](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/DR59)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112/8 "2020-04-25T14:35:42Z")

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yep, basically did this, except using an annotation rather then the y-axis label. thanks!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dpsanders](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dpsanders/32/3573_2.png) [@dpsanders](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dpsanders)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2020, 2:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112/9 "2020-04-25T14:52:12Z")

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That sounds like a confusing plot for a user to understand…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rmsmsgood](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/rmsmsgood/32/20544_2.png) [@rmsmsgood](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rmsmsgood)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2023, 1:07am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-clean-scientific-formatting/38112/11 "2023-03-17T01:07:02Z")

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As I know, this is a default setting in matlab and I think that there are many people want it works in GR backend of julia. In a publication, the “clean scientific formatting” looks space-saving and neat.

> [@dpsanders](#):
>
> I have always found that confusing. Why not just label the axis as y/10^14?

Well, maybe it could solve the problem NOW. But we hope that it works automatically, not manually. For some cases, the data has 10^14 scale, for other cases, the data has 10^-3 scale… we can’t manipulate them all.