Is it possible to set .pdf as defaut when saving an image?

Fabien_Lafont · February 7, 2012, 2:33pm

Is it possible to set the extension .pdf as defaut when I save an
image using the matplotlib bar. My coworkers are always saving the
image in png and it's really ugly!

Thx,

Fab

Benjamin_Root · February 7, 2012, 3:48pm

Interesting request. Looking through the backends, it appears that only the Cairo backend currently supports a configurable rcParam for the default filetype (‘cairo.format’). All backends implement a “get_default_filetype()” method for their canvases, but most of them have that default hard-coded as “png”. This really only makes sense for backends like agg, pdf, ps and such.

Devs - Maybe we should consider fixing this for the non-fileformat specific backends? Do we want an rcParam for each backend? Or a single rcParam for default filetypes and deprecate ‘cairo.format’?

Cheers!

Ben Root

···

On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 8:33 AM, Fabien Lafont <lafont.fabien@…287…> wrote:

Is it possible to set the extension .pdf as defaut when I save an

image using the matplotlib bar. My coworkers are always saving the

image in png and it’s really ugly!

Thx,

Fab

Michael_Droettboom1 · February 7, 2012, 4:40pm

I would definitely lean toward the latter – unify it under a single
rcParam.

Mike

···

On 02/07/2012 10:48 AM, Benjamin Root wrote:

    On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 8:33 AM, Fabien > Lafont <lafont.fabien@...287...> >         wrote:
      Is it possible to set the extension .pdf as defaut when I save
an
      image using the matplotlib bar. My coworkers are always saving
the
      image in png and it's really ugly!



      Thx,



      Fab
      Interesting request.  Looking through the backends, it appears
that only the Cairo backend currently supports a configurable
rcParam for the default filetype (‘cairo.format’). All
backends implement a “get_default_filetype()” method for their
canvases, but most of them have that default hard-coded as
“png”. This really only makes sense for backends like agg,
pdf, ps and such.
      Devs - Maybe we should consider fixing this for the
non-fileformat specific backends? Do we want an rcParam for
each backend? Or a single rcParam for default filetypes and
deprecate ‘cairo.format’?

Martin_Spacek · May 29, 2012, 6:34am

Sorry for posting to an old thread, but I just submitted a pull request that implements this, AFAICT:

github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib

replace cairo.format with savefig.format in rcParams

matplotlib:master ← mspacek:default_filetype

opened 11:51PM - 28 May 12 UTC

mspacek

+93 -122

I stumbled across this post on the mailing list from a while ago about creating …an rcParams field that controls the default savefig filetype: http://www.mail-archive.com/matplotlib-users@lists.sourceforge.net/msg23382.html It was suggested that cairo.format be deprecated and replaced with a single rcParam that applies to all (relevant) backends. So here's my stab at it. savefig.format is a new key that's loaded by the base backend, and only overridden in backends that didn't default to .png as their hardcoded format (specifically, the PS, PDF, SVG, and EMF backends). Seems pretty straightforward, but I've only really tested this on the Qt4Agg backend, because that's all I use. I only did this because I wanted to change the default savefig format from .png to .pdf in my matplotlibrc file, and now I can. This also inadvertently replaced a few stray tabs with spaces in a couple of rc files. By the way, the `if len(be_parts) > 1` clause in `__init__.py` now raises a `ValueError('FIXME: Not sure what to do here')`, because I wasn't exactly sure what it was doing wrt cairo.format. But, I'm guessing the whole clause can be deleted. Am I right?

Martin

···

On 12-02-07 08:40 AM, Michael Droettboom wrote:

On 02/07/2012 10:48 AM, Benjamin Root wrote:

On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 8:33 AM, Fabien Lafont >> <lafont.fabien@...287... >> <mailto:lafont.fabien@…287…>> wrote:

    Is it possible to set the extension .pdf as defaut when I save an
    image using the matplotlib bar. My coworkers are always saving the
    image in png and it's really ugly!

    Thx,

    Fab

Interesting request. Looking through the backends, it appears that only the
Cairo backend currently supports a configurable rcParam for the default
filetype ('cairo.format'). All backends implement a "get_default_filetype()"
method for their canvases, but most of them have that default hard-coded as
"png". This really only makes sense for backends like agg, pdf, ps and such.

Devs - Maybe we should consider fixing this for the non-fileformat specific
backends? Do we want an rcParam for each backend? Or a single rcParam for
default filetypes and deprecate 'cairo.format'?

I would definitely lean toward the latter -- unify it under a single rcParam.

Mike