I have the following problem: I want to save a figure with a specific width, but auto-determine its height. Let's look at an example: import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np fig,ax=plt.subplots(figsize=(5,5),layout='constrained') x=np.linspace(0,2*np.pi) y=np.sin(x) ax.set_aspect('equal') ax.plot(x,y) plt.show() fig.savefig('test.pdf',format='pdf') Here, I want the figure to be 5 inches wide, I want the axis to use up all the horizontal space, but I don't really care about the exact vertical size. Basically exactly, what plt.show() gives me: plt.show() output fig.savefig() gives me a lot of whitespace on top and below the figure (obviously, because I have defined figsize=(5,5)). Using the option bbox_inches='tight' almost does what I want to, but it re-sizes the x-direction of the figure (in this case to roughly 5.1 inches). I have thus not found any way of saving this figure with a width of exactly 5 inches but an auto-determined height. The only way I can achieve what I want is to manually decrease the figsize until I see that the figure starts shrinking in x-direction. Continue reading...
