[Tex/LaTex] Scaling a multi-column TikZ/pgfplots groupplot to page width

marginspgfplotsscalingtikz-pgf

I am trying to scale a pgfplots groupplot with multiple (and variable numbers of) subplots to match the \textwidth of a document.

What I found is that there seems to be no direct relationship between the width parameter in the groupplot definition, so a simple formula such as 1/<n-plots>*(\textwidth-<padding>) is producing very different results with different plots. Moreover, I would expect a function such as 1/<n-plots>*\textwidth to at worst exceed page width because of paddings not taken into account, but it turns out that the result is smaller than the page width and tends to shrink with more plots, suggesting some kind of negative padding.

How is the width of a groupplot calculated, and how can it be scaled to a fixed width regardless of column number? (I'm not interested in solutions that simply rescale the entire image.)

Example plot below:

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \begin{groupplot}[
        group style={
            group size=5 by 1,
            vertical sep=0pt,
            ylabels at=edge left,
            xlabels at=edge bottom,
            yticklabels at=edge left,
            horizontal sep=0pt,
        },
        extra y ticks={20},
        extra y tick style={grid=major},
        width=1/5*\textwidth,
        height=5cm,
        ylabel=coverage,
        tickpos=left,
        xtick=\empty,
        ytick align=inside,
        xtick align=inside,
        ymin=0,
        ymax=110,
        xmin=0,
        xmax=2
    ]
    \nextgroupplot[xlabel=1]
    \addplot [blue!80!black, fill=blue, fill opacity=0.2] coordinates {(0,1)(1,45)(2,34)}
        |- (axis cs:0,0) -- cycle;
    \nextgroupplot[xlabel=2]
    \addplot [blue!80!black, fill=blue, fill opacity=0.2] coordinates {(0,1)(1,45)(2,34)}
        |- (axis cs:0,0) -- cycle;
    \nextgroupplot[xlabel=3]
    \addplot [blue!80!black, fill=blue, fill opacity=0.2] coordinates {(0,1)(1,67)(2,14)}
        |- (axis cs:0,0) -- cycle;
    \nextgroupplot[xlabel=4]
    \addplot [blue!80!black, fill=blue, fill opacity=0.2] coordinates {(0,12)(1,105)(2,34)}
        |- (axis cs:0,0) -- cycle;
    \nextgroupplot[xlabel=5]
    \addplot [blue!80!black, fill=blue, fill opacity=0.2] coordinates {(0,1)(1,45)(2,34)}
        |- (axis cs:0,0) -- cycle;
    \end{groupplot}
\end{tikzpicture}

Best Answer

By default, if you use width=<length>, PGFPlots makes some rather strong assumptions about the size the labels will take up (even if the subplots don't have any) when setting the lengths. You can get a much more predictable result if you use scale only axis, width=1/5*\textwidth, and then adjust that length to compensate for the axis label.

However, if you really want the plot to take up exactly the width of the text without manual adjustments, you should use the tikzscale package: If you put the code for the tikzpicture into a separate file (possibly using filecontents) and then include it using \includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{<filename.tikz>}, the width will automatically be adjusted so the overall plot fills the text width:

\documentclass{article}


\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usepgfplotslibrary{groupplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=newest}
\usepackage{tikzscale}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{plot.tikz}
\begin{tikzpicture}
    \begin{groupplot}[
        group style={
            group size=5 by 1,
            vertical sep=0pt,
            ylabels at=edge left,
            xlabels at=edge bottom,
            yticklabels at=edge left,
            horizontal sep=0pt,
        },
        extra y ticks={20},
        extra y tick style={grid=major},
        width=1/5*\textwidth,
        height=5cm,
        ylabel=coverage,
        tickpos=left,
        xtick=\empty,
        ytick align=inside,
        xtick align=inside,
        ymin=0,
        ymax=110,
        xmin=0,
        xmax=2
    ]
    \nextgroupplot[xlabel=1]
    \addplot [blue!80!black, fill=blue, fill opacity=0.2] coordinates {(0,1)(1,45)(2,34)}
        |- (axis cs:0,0) -- cycle;
    \nextgroupplot[xlabel=2]
    \addplot [blue!80!black, fill=blue, fill opacity=0.2] coordinates {(0,1)(1,45)(2,34)}
        |- (axis cs:0,0) -- cycle;
    \nextgroupplot[xlabel=3]
    \addplot [blue!80!black, fill=blue, fill opacity=0.2] coordinates {(0,1)(1,67)(2,14)}
        |- (axis cs:0,0) -- cycle;
    \nextgroupplot[xlabel=4]
    \addplot [blue!80!black, fill=blue, fill opacity=0.2] coordinates {(0,12)(1,105)(2,34)}
        |- (axis cs:0,0) -- cycle;
    \nextgroupplot[xlabel=5]
    \addplot [blue!80!black, fill=blue, fill opacity=0.2] coordinates {(0,1)(1,45)(2,34)}
        |- (axis cs:0,0) -- cycle;
    \end{groupplot}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{filecontents}

\begin{document}

\noindent\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{plot.tikz}

\noindent\hrulefill
\end{document}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] pgfplots: how can I scale to text width

As Stefan said, the width and height of the plot are only approximate. Stefan's solution is very nice in that the plot area including labels, titles, legends, and so on, will take up exactly the width of the text area. However, the text in your plot will be scaled, which may or may not be acceptable to you.

A different approach would be to you use the scale only axis option, which specifies that the width and height only apply to the axis itself, not the labels, titles etc. In conjunction with \begin{tikzpicture}[trim axis left], you can make the axis take up the exact width of the text, with the ticklabels extending into the left margin:

Alternatively, you can manually correct the width of the plot for the width of the ticklabels. If you set scale only axis, width=\textwidth-\widthof{<longest ticklabel>}-<ticklabel offset>, the overall plot width will be exactly the width of the text. By default, the offset of the ticklabels is achieved with an inner sep, which introduces whitespace also on the outside of the label. To avoid this, you can set yticklabel style={inner sep=0pt, align=right, xshift=-0.1cm}.

Here's the code for the two approaches:

First solution, ticklabels protruding into margin

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{report}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage{palatino}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usepgfplotslibrary{dateplot} 

\begin{document}
\setlength{\parindent}{0ex}

\lipsum[1]\vspace*{2ex}

\begin{tikzpicture}[trim axis left]
\begin{axis}[
scale only axis, % The height and width argument only apply to the actual axis
height=5cm,
width=\textwidth,
grid=both,
max space between ticks=40, % To control the number of major ticks
minor x tick num=4,
minor y tick num=4,
major tick length=0.15cm,
minor tick length=0.075cm,
tick style={semithick,color=black}, 
date coordinates in=x,
xticklabel=\day.\month.
]

\addplot[color = black, mark=diamond*] coordinates {
(2009-08-07, 98)
(2009-08-09, 92)
(2009-08-12, 94)
(2009-08-15, 87)
(2009-08-19, 82)
(2009-08-26, 65)
(2009-08-29, 54)
(2009-09-02, 31)
};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\vspace*{2ex}\lipsum[2]

\end{document}

Second solution, overall plot width exactly text width

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{report}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage{palatino}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usepgfplotslibrary{dateplot} 

\begin{document}
\setlength{\parindent}{0ex}

\lipsum[1]\vspace*{2ex}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
scale only axis, % The height and width argument only apply to the actual axis
height=5cm,
width=\textwidth-\widthof{100}-0.1cm, % \textwidth minus width of longest label text minus label offset
yticklabel style={align=right,inner sep=0pt,xshift=-0.1cm}, % No inner sep, to remove whitespace on left, manually offset by given distance
grid=both,
max space between ticks=40, % To control the number of major ticks
minor x tick num=4,
minor y tick num=4,
major tick length=0.15cm,
minor tick length=0.075cm,
tick style={semithick,color=black}, 
date coordinates in=x,
xticklabel=\day.\month.
]

\addplot[color = black, mark=diamond*] coordinates {
(2009-08-07, 98)
(2009-08-09, 92)
(2009-08-12, 94)
(2009-08-15, 87)
(2009-08-19, 82)
(2009-08-26, 65)
(2009-08-29, 54)
(2009-09-02, 31)
};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\vspace*{2ex}\lipsum[2]

\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] pgfplots axis scaling

You can specify the length of the unit vectors using the keys x and y. In this case, you would use x=0.5cm, y=0.5cm/3 for the first plot and x=0.5cm, y=0.5cm/1.5.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{pgfplots}

\begin{document}


\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
    samples=60,
    domain=0:10, xmax=10.5,
    restrict y to domain=0:10,
    axis lines=left,
    y=0.5cm/3,
    x=0.5cm,
    grid=both,
    xtick={0,...,10},
    ytick={0,3,...,9},
    compat=newest,
    xlabel=$x$, xlabel style={at={(1,0)}, anchor=west},
    ylabel=$y$, ylabel style={rotate=-90,at={(0,1)}, anchor=south}
]
\addplot [red] {x};
\addplot [black] {x^2};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
    samples=60,
    domain=0:10, xmax=10.5,
    restrict y to domain=0:10,
    axis lines=left,
    y=0.5cm/1.5,
    x=0.5cm,
    grid=both,
    xtick={0,...,10},
    ytick={0,1.5,3,...,9},
    compat=newest,
    xlabel=$x$, xlabel style={at={(1,0)}, anchor=west},
    ylabel=$y$, ylabel style={rotate=-90,at={(0,1)}, anchor=south}
]
\addplot [red] {x};
\addplot [black] {x^2};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] pgfplots: how can I scale to text width

[Tex/LaTex] pgfplots axis scaling

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