Matplotlib Table: Create and Style Tables with ax.table

Sometimes the best way to show data is a table. matplotlib can draw tables with ax.table, which is useful to include them in a figure next to a chart or to export them as an image. The examples show the standings of a football league.

Creating a table with `ax.table`

Pass the content of the cells to cellText and the header to colLabels. Hide the axes with ax.axis("off") to show only the table.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

columns = ["Team", "Played", "Won", "Drawn", "Lost", "Points"]
rows = [["Rovers", 30, 21, 6, 3, 69],
        ["United", 30, 19, 7, 4, 64],
        ["Athletic", 30, 17, 8, 5, 59],
        ["City", 30, 15, 6, 9, 51],
        ["Wanderers", 30, 12, 9, 9, 45]]

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.axis("off")
ax.table(cellText = rows, colLabels = columns, loc = "center")
# plt.show()

Table in matplotlib

Font size and cell size

Disable the automatic font size with auto_set_font_size(False), set it with set_fontsize and enlarge the cells with scale(x, y).

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

columns = ["Team", "Played", "Won", "Drawn", "Lost", "Points"]
rows = [["Rovers", 30, 21, 6, 3, 69],
        ["United", 30, 19, 7, 4, 64],
        ["Athletic", 30, 17, 8, 5, 59],
        ["City", 30, 15, 6, 9, 51],
        ["Wanderers", 30, 12, 9, 9, 45]]

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.axis("off")
tab = ax.table(cellText = rows, colLabels = columns, loc = "center")

tab.auto_set_font_size(False)
tab.set_fontsize(11)
tab.scale(1.2, 1.8)
# plt.show()

Change the font size and cell size of a matplotlib table

Colors of the header and the cells

colColours sets the background of the header and cellColours the background of each cell. Each cell can also be customized individually with tab[row, column], where row 0 is the header.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

columns = ["Team", "Played", "Won", "Drawn", "Lost", "Points"]
rows = [["Rovers", 30, 21, 6, 3, 69],
        ["United", 30, 19, 7, 4, 64],
        ["Athletic", 30, 17, 8, 5, 59],
        ["City", 30, 15, 6, 9, 51],
        ["Wanderers", 30, 12, 9, 9, 45]]

stripes = [["#F1FAEE"] * 6 if i % 2 == 0 else ["white"] * 6 for i in range(len(rows))]

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.axis("off")
tab = ax.table(cellText = rows, colLabels = columns, loc = "center",
               cellColours = stripes, colColours = ["#1D3557"] * 6)
tab.auto_set_font_size(False)
tab.set_fontsize(10)
tab.scale(1.2, 2)

for col in range(len(columns)):
    tab[0, col].set_text_props(color = "white", weight = "bold")
# plt.show()

Table with colored header and striped rows in matplotlib

Highlight values

Loop through the cells to change the color of those that meet a condition, for example the leader of the league.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

columns = ["Team", "Played", "Won", "Drawn", "Lost", "Points"]
rows = [["Rovers", 30, 21, 6, 3, 69],
        ["United", 30, 19, 7, 4, 64],
        ["Athletic", 30, 17, 8, 5, 59],
        ["City", 30, 15, 6, 9, 51],
        ["Wanderers", 30, 12, 9, 9, 45]]

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.axis("off")
tab = ax.table(cellText = rows, colLabels = columns, loc = "center")
tab.scale(1.1, 1.8)

for col in range(len(columns)):
    tab[1, col].set_facecolor("#FFD166")
# plt.show()

Highlight a row of a matplotlib table

Table below a chart

With loc = "bottom" the table is placed below the axes, so the values of a chart can be shown under it. Adjust the space with subplots_adjust.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

columns = ["Team", "Played", "Won", "Drawn", "Lost", "Points"]
rows = [["Rovers", 30, 21, 6, 3, 69],
        ["United", 30, 19, 7, 4, 64],
        ["Athletic", 30, 17, 8, 5, 59],
        ["City", 30, 15, 6, 9, 51],
        ["Wanderers", 30, 12, 9, 9, 45]]

teams = [r[0] for r in rows]
points = [r[5] for r in rows]

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.bar(teams, points, color = "#457B9D")
ax.set_xticks([])
ax.table(cellText = [points], rowLabels = ["Points"], colLabels = teams, loc = "bottom")
plt.subplots_adjust(bottom = 0.2)
# plt.show()

Bar chart with a table below in matplotlib