Improve subplot size/spacing with many subplots in matplotlib

Question

Very similar to this question but with the difference that my figure can be as large as it needs to be.

I need to generate a whole bunch of vertically-stacked plots

Answer 1

Similar to tight_layout matplotlib now (as of version 2.2) provides constrained_layout. In contrast to tight_layout, which may be called any time in the code for a single optimized layout, constrained_layout is a property, which may be active and will optimze the layout before every drawing step.

Hence it needs to be activated before or during subplot creation, such as figure(constrained_layout=True) or subplots(constrained_layout=True).

Example:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig, axes = plt.subplots(4,4, constrained_layout=True)

plt.show()

constrained_layout may as well be set via rcParams

plt.rcParams['figure.constrained_layout.use'] = True

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See the what's new entry and the Constrained Layout Guide