How to change separation between tick labels and axis labels in Matplotlib

Question

My axis labels often look not good (too close to tick labels) when I use Matplotlib.

How

Answer 1

This is a really subjective question, but I'll take a stab anyway:

The figsize kwarg takes the width and height of the figure in inches.

A4 paper is 8.3" by 11.7". So let's say, for the sake of argument, you want 1" margins.

paperheight = 11.7
paperwidth = 8.3
margin = 1.0

fig = plt.figure(figsize=(paperwidth - 2*margin, paperheight - 2*margin))

# plotting stuff

fig.tight_layout()
fig.savefig(...)

The call to tight_layout() will give the labels a bit more room and make sure that everything is expanded out to the figure edges as much as practicable.