Matplotlib

The standard plotting library for Python.

Matplotlib is taught here in 12 lessons, running from Figures, axes and your first plot through to Debugging plots: empty axes, missing data and overlap. Each lesson takes one topic, shows the working code, and links onward to the next, so the course can be read straight through in order.

Lessons

1. Figures, axes and your first plotThe object model behind every Matplotlib plot, and how to avoid the state-machine habits that cause inconsistent charts.
2. Styling, subplots and savingConsistent colours and themes, multi-panel figures that stay readable, and exporting images at the right size.
3. Backends and environment setupWhat a backend actually is, how to choose between interactive and headless, and how to make charts work in notebooks, servers and CI.
4. Chart types: bar, scatter, histogram, pie and boxThe everyday chart functions, the arguments that matter, and the specific ways each chart can mislead a reader.
5. Titles, legends, annotations and textLabel axes properly, place legends without fighting the layout, and point at data with annotations in the right coordinate system.
6. Scales, ticks and date axesLog and symmetric-log scales, tick locators and formatters, and getting date and category axes to read the way you intend.
7. Colormaps, colour mapping and accessibilityNormalisation, colorbars and the choice of palette — the part of a chart that decides whether the numbers are readable.
8. Images and 3D: imshow, contour and mplot3dGridded data on a colour scale, contour lines you can read, and the honest limits of a 3-D surface plot.
9. Plotting directly from pandas and NumPyWhat df.plot actually does under the hood, how to combine it with manual axes work, and where pandas stops being enough.
10. Animations and interactive figuresBuild a frame-by-frame animation, export it to video, and add sliders and pan/zoom without fighting the event loop.
11. Publication quality: DPI, vector formats and layoutInches and dots per inch without guessing, vector export with embedded fonts, and multi-panel figures that survive review.
12. Debugging plots: empty axes, missing data and overlapWhy a line vanishes, how to stop labels colliding, and how to inspect the artist tree when the picture does not match your intent.

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