Export plotly charts

Plotly charts can be saved as interactive HTML files, which keep the zoom and the hover labels, or as static images for documents and presentations.

Interactive HTML with write_html

write_html saves the chart as a standalone web page that can be opened in any browser or embedded in a website.

import plotly.express as px

df = px.data.gapminder().query("year == 2007")

fig = px.scatter(df, x = "gdpPercap", y = "lifeExp", color = "continent")

fig.show()

fig.write_html("chart.html")

By default the file includes the whole plotly.js library (around 3.5 MB). Use include_plotlyjs = "cdn" to load it from the internet instead and get a much smaller file:

fig.write_html("chart.html", include_plotlyjs = "cdn")

Static images with write_image

Exporting to PNG, JPG, SVG or PDF requires the kaleido package (pip install kaleido). The format is deduced from the extension of the file.

fig.write_image("chart.png")
fig.write_image("chart.svg")
fig.write_image("chart.pdf")

Size and resolution

Set the size in pixels with width and height and increase the resolution with scale. For instance, scale = 2 doubles the number of pixels without changing the proportions of the texts.

fig.write_image("chart.png", width = 1200, height = 800, scale = 2)

Toolbar and download button

The toolbar (modebar) displayed over the chart includes a button to download it as PNG. Customize the download options or hide the toolbar with the config argument of show or write_html.

config = {"toImageButtonOptions": {"format": "svg", "filename": "my_chart",
                                  "width": 1200, "height": 800},
          "displaylogo": False,
          "modeBarButtonsToRemove": ["lasso2d", "select2d"]}

fig.show(config = config)
fig.write_html("chart.html", config = config)

Use config = {"displayModeBar": False} to hide the toolbar completely. To set the size of the figure before exporting it see the plotly themes and layout tutorial.