Style and export

Every eofigs figure starts from the printed size. Choose a journal, create the figure at a column width in millimetres, and save it in the journal's formats with a check report.

import eofigs

eofigs.set_style("elsevier")
fig, (ax1, ax2) = eofigs.new_figure("double", height_mm=65, ncols=2)
ax1.plot(years, ndvi_forest, marker="o", label="Forest")
...
eofigs.tidy_axes(ax1, colour_bar)  # at most five ticks, at round values
eofigs.label_panels([ax1, ax2])
report = eofigs.save_figure(fig, "figures/fig2")  # fig2.pdf + fig2.tiff for Elsevier
print(report)

The full script, the downloads and the check report are on the gallery page.

save_figure adds the same checks for each written PDF, PNG or TIFF file, including the fonts embedded in the PDF.

Styles

set_style applies a journal style for the rest of a script; style does the same inside a with block and restores matplotlib's settings afterwards, which keeps notebooks clean.

Setting	Default
Font	the journal's preferred family; font="serif", "sans-serif" or a font name
Fallback fonts	Times New Roman → Liberation Serif → TeX Gyre Termes; Arial → Liberation Sans → Arimo (a warning names the substitute)
Sizes	journal base size (8 pt), tick labels 1 pt smaller but never below the journal minimum
Units and symbols	matplotlib mathtext, matched to the text font (STIX for serif, DejaVu Sans for sans-serif)
Bold	bold=True for Times New Roman Bold–style figures
Colours	Okabe–Ito for lines and markers; cmcrameri batlow for images
Panel labels	labels="(a)", bold; "a", "(A)", "A", "a)" or None
Minus sign	true minus (−), not a hyphen
PDF fonts	TrueType (Type 42), never Type 3

Write units with mathtext, for example r"gC m$^{-2}$ yr$^{-1}$", not with Unicode superscripts: some journal fonts have no glyph for "⁻¹" and print an empty box.

An author or lab style in one call

Package defaults stay generic. An author or a lab sets its own look with one call at the top of a script, for example bold Arial text with bold capital panel letters and at most five ticks per axis:

eofigs.set_style(journal="custom", font="Arial", bold=True, labels="A", max_ticks=5)

This sets every text element in bold, falls back to Liberation Sans or Arimo where Arial is not installed (with a warning), makes label_panels write bold A, B, ... just outside the top-left corner of each panel, and turns on the tick rule (below). A journal preset can be combined with it (journal="elsevier") to keep that journal's sizes and resolution.

Some authors keep panel titles out of figures: the phases or periods go in the caption and each panel carries only its letter. set_style(..., panel_titles=False) makes every recipe follow that rule; recipes that would title their panels (for example the "Before (3 months)", "During" and "After (6 months)" maps of event_composite) then name the panels in their caption sentence instead: "(a) before, 3 months; (b) during; (c) after, 6 months; (d) composite series".

Ticks and dense layers

• tidy_axes(ax, colour_bar, ...) gives each axis and colour bar four or five ticks at round values (1, 2, 2.5 and 5 times a power of ten) inside the axis range, for example 1000 to 4000 m on an elevation axis from 500 to 4500 m; at most five, or the max_ticks set with set_style. Ticks set explicitly, log axes and map axes are left alone; date axes get concise date labels. Every eofigs recipe calls it.
• set_style(max_ticks=5) makes a tick limit a house rule: check_figure then warns about axes with more tick labels. Without it (the default) ticks are not checked, because the number of ticks is a matter of style, not a journal requirement.
• save_figure rasterises dense layers in vector files: mesh plots (pcolormesh) and collections with more than 2 000 elements (dense scatter plots, many polygons) are drawn as an image at the output resolution inside the PDF, while text, axes and lines stay vector. Pass rasterize_dense=False to keep everything vector.
• Figures without panels get no panel letter: call label_panels only for multi-panel figures.

Sizes

new_figure takes a named width ("single", "onehalf", "double") or a number in mm, and a height in mm or an aspect ratio. Heights above the journal maximum raise an error. save_figure never trims the figure, so the file has exactly the printed size; use size_px= when a fixed pixel width is required.

Artwork type

Publishers ask for more resolution for line art (plots and drawings without images) than for figures that combine text and images. Pass art= to save_figure and check_figure:

art	Meaning	Elsevier	Springer, Taylor & Francis
"combination" (default)	text with images or maps	500 dpi	600 dpi
"line"	line art: plots, charts, diagrams	1000 dpi	1200 dpi
"halftone"	photographs and continuous-tone images	300 dpi	300 dpi

Raster files are written at the preset's export resolution (600 dpi) or the requirement, whichever is higher, so save_figure(fig, "fig3", art="line") writes a 1000 dpi TIFF for Elsevier. Vector PDFs are not affected.

Figure check

check_figure works on a live figure or on an exported file.

Check	Rule
Size	width matches a column width (warning otherwise); not wider or taller than the journal allows
Resolution	at least the journal's resolution for the artwork type (art=)
Font size	smallest text at least the journal minimum
Fonts	fonts in use (live figure) or embedded (PDF); Type 3 fonts fail. Metric-compatible free fonts pass in place of the journal's fonts, with a note: Liberation Sans and Arimo for Arial, TeX Gyre Heros for Helvetica, Liberation Serif, Tinos and TeX Gyre Termes for Times New Roman
Colour-blind safety	line, marker, bar and fill colours differ by CIEDE2000 ≥ 10 in normal vision and ≥ 6 under simulated protan, deutan and tritan vision (Machado et al. 2009); close pairs are a warning, because markers, line styles or direct labels can separate them
Colour maps	sequential maps need monotonic lightness, diverging maps monotonic lightness on each side of the centre, cyclic and categorical maps are exempt; rainbow-type maps (jet, rainbow, hsv, turbo, ...) fail
Ticks	only with set_style(max_ticks=...): at most that many tick labels per axis (warning otherwise; tidy_axes fixes it)

cvd_preview shows the figure as seen with colour-vision deficiencies; see Colours.