[Tex/LaTex] Using \sffamily for tick labels in pgfplots

fontspgfplots

Possible Duplicate:
How can I change the font family in pgfplots?

I'm trying to use sf font for tick labels in pgfplots. I've already seen many questions like this, but all of them had more complex problems and I couldn't find the appropriate solution myself.

My MWE:

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{report}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usepackage{helvet}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.3}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\centering

\pgfplotsset{
every axis label/.append style={font=\huge\sffamily},
tick label style={font=\sffamily\huge},
}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
height=8cm,
width=15cm,
xlabel = {x3456},
ylabel = {y},
domain = 0:1,
xtick={0.0,0.1,0.2,0.3,0.4,0.5,0.6,0.7,0.8,0.9,1.0},
ytick={0.0,0.1,0.2,0.3,0.4,0.5},
grid=major,
no markers,
cycle list name=linestyles
]
\addplot {0.5-abs(x-0.5)};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

which gives

MWE

As you can see, \sffamily works for the axis labels, but not for the tick labels. Strangely, the \huge does work for the tick labels.

How do I change tick labels to \sffamily?

Best Answer

If my comment regarding tick labels being considered math expressions is correct, you must use math mode sans font to make them sans serif. On the other hand, axis labels are considered normal text, so you have to use \sffamily to make them sans serif.

So, the solution would be:

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{report}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usepackage{helvet}
\usepackage[eulergreek]{sansmath}
\pgfplotsset{
tick label style = {font=\sansmath\sffamily},
every axis label/.append style={font=\sffamily\footnotesize},
}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.3}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\centering

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
height=8cm,
width=15cm,
xlabel = {x3456},
ylabel = {y3456},
domain = 0:1,
xtick={0.0,0.1,0.2,0.3,0.4,0.5,0.6,0.7,0.8,0.9,1.0},
ytick={0.0,0.1,0.2,0.3,0.4,0.5},
grid=major,
no markers,
cycle list name=linestyles
]
\addplot {0.5-abs(x-0.5)};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

I don't know why, but using only

every axis label = {font=\sffamily\footnotesize}

does not work for me, so I had to use

every axis label/.append style={font=\sffamily\footnotesize}.

With the above code, the output is

enter image description here

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Preserving styles while changing axis y line in pgfplots

OK, I got somewhere - except the I cannot get the plots' combined width to fit within the margins (hope someone will offer a solution for that):

Otherwise:

Aligning the xlabel, ylabel: is a bit of a pain; note the manual states:

The starred versions . . . line* only affect the axis lines, without correcting the positions of axis labels, tick lines or other keys which are (possibly) affected by a changed axis line.

which in this case means that I should first set axis y line=middle to set the label position as I want it, then re-set with axis y line*=left afterwards, so only the axis position changes (this also adds the 0 as ytick label)

the zero to appear as first x axis tick label on the left-hand plot - similarly, by "overloading" with axis x line*=bottom
the zero to disappear as first y axis tick label on the right-hand plot - somewhat tricky, but seems that only thing that works, is "overloading" yticklabel and setting a conditional command via \ifnum in there, that uses \ticknum (which apparently starts from 1).
the axes tick label font - the problem is that by default, pgfplots typesets axes tick labels in math mode; as example - I've left the yticklabel overload so it typesets the number directly, and it can be seen it is in Times. Otherwise, Change font also on axes in pgfplots explains that an additional package has to be loaded to use Times as math font, and for me \usepackage{txfonts} works (though I bumped in the problem described in Local font installation problems, and the solution there worked for me).
auto xshift of scope: a similar problem is noted in pgfplots - Positioning a tikz scope relative to another tikz scope. This is not quite auto, but I use half of \textwidth minus half of intended separation to set the width of a plot; as it can be seen from the image, it's almost there but not quite right with the margins; will probably have to test the suggestion of @JohnKormylo, too

And here is the code:

\documentclass[%
  12pt,
  journal,
  twoside,
  draftcls,
  letterpaper,
]{IEEEtran}


% \usepackage{txfonts} % Times font in math; 
% tlmgr install txfonts ; texhash ; updmap-sys --enable Map=txfonts.map ; texhash
% [rm ~/.texlive2011/texmf-var/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map]

\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usepackage{pgfplotstable}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning} % of

% https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/33703/extract-x-y-coordinate-of-an-arbitrary-point-in-tikz
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\gettikzxy}[3]{%
  \tikz@scan@one@point\pgfutil@firstofone#1\relax
  \edef#2{\the\pgf@x}%
  \edef#3{\the\pgf@y}%
}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\newlength{\pw}
\setlength{\pw}{0.5\textwidth}
\addtolength{\pw}{-0.5cm}

\begin{tikzpicture}

\pgfplotstableread[col sep=&,row sep=\\]{
  0.0159779999812599 & 0.00398599999607541 \\
  0.0240009999834001 & 0.00802300000214018 \\
  0.0240489999996498 & 4.80000162497163e-05 \\
  0.0280280000006314 & 0.00397900000098161 \\
}\mytable

\begin{scope}[local bounding box=scope1]
\begin{axis}[
  title={\small my data},
  title style={at={(0.5,0.9)},anchor=center},
  clip=true,
  width=\pw,
  axis x line=middle,
  axis y line=middle,
  axis x line*=bottom,
  xmin = 0,
  xmax = 0.03,
  ymin = 0,
  ymax = 0.009,
  xlabel={$t$\,[ms]},
  xlabel style={at={(axis description cs:1.01,+0.0)},anchor=west},
  ylabel={$D$},
  ylabel style={at={(axis description cs:-0.02,1.01)},anchor=south},
  scaled x ticks=base 10:3,
  xtick scale label code/.code={},
  x tick label style={
    rotate=-45,
    anchor=west,
    /pgf/number format/fixed,
    /pgf/number format/fixed zerofill,
    /pgf/number format/precision=3,
  },
  ymajorticks=true,
  yminorticks=false,
  tick label style={font=\small,},
  legend cell align=left,
  legend pos=outer north east,
]

\addplot table \mytable;

\end{axis}
\end{scope}

\gettikzxy{($(scope1.east)+(1cm,0)$)}{\ax}{\ay}

% none of this works:
% \begin{scope}[remember picture,at={($(scope1.east)+(1cm,0)$)}]%right=of scope1.east]%[at={($(scope1.east)+(1cm,0)$)}] 
% ... only xshift:
\begin{scope}[xshift=\ax]
\begin{axis}[
  title={\small my data},
  title style={at={(0.5,0.9)},anchor=center},
  clip=true,
  width=\pw,
  axis x line=middle,
  axis y line=middle,
  axis x line*=bottom,
  axis y line*=left,
  xmin = -0.005,
  xmax = 0.025,
  ymin = 0,
  ymax = 0.009,
  xlabel={$t$\,[ms]},
  xlabel style={at={(axis description cs:1.01,+0.0)},anchor=west},
  ylabel={$D$},
  ylabel style={at={(axis description cs:-0.02,1.01)},anchor=south},
  scaled x ticks=base 10:3,
  xtick scale label code/.code={},
  x tick label style={
    rotate=-45,
    anchor=west,
    /pgf/number format/fixed,
    /pgf/number format/fixed zerofill,
    /pgf/number format/precision=3,
  },
  %yticklabel={\ifnum\ticknum=1{}\else\axisdefaultticklabel\fi},
  yticklabel={\ifnum\ticknum=1{}\else\tick\fi},
  ymajorticks=true,
  yminorticks=false,
  tick label style={font=\small,},
  legend cell align=left,
  legend pos=outer north east,
]

\addplot table \mytable;

\end{axis}
\end{scope}

\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] Location and size of pgf plot axis in a tikzpicture – with tikz positioning library

I do not know why that syntax doesn't work, but you can use the syntax of the calc library. While not exactly the same, it does allow you to place axes relative to other nodes/coordinates. Note that the default anchor for the axis is south west, change that if desirable.

In the code below I used at={($(nodeOne)+(0cm,1.5cm)$)}. When no anchor for the node is supplied (e.g. nodeOne.west), the center anchor is assumed. As you can see, the lower left corner (anchor=south west) of the axis is 1.5cm above the center of nodeOne.