colors.rst

.. _colors:

Specifying Colors

In almost all places in matplotlib where a color can be specified by the user it can be provided as:

* ``(r, g, b)`` tuples

* ``(r, g, b, a)`` tuples

* hex string, ex ``#OFOFOF``

* float value between [0, 1] for gray level

* One of ``{'b', 'g', 'r', 'c', 'm', 'y', 'k', 'w'}``

* valid css4/X11 color names

* valid name from the `XKCD color survey

<http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/>`__ These

names are available both with and with out spaces. In the case of name clashes

the css/X11 names have priority. To ensure colors

from the XKCD mapping are used prefix the space-less name with

``'XKCD'``.

All string specifications of color are case-insensitive.

Internally, mpl is moving to storing all colors as RGBA float quadruples.

Name clash between CSS4/X11 and XKCD

The color names in the XKCD survey include spaces (unlike css4/X11

names). Matplotlib exposes all of the XKCD colors both with and

without spaces.

There are 95 (out of 148 colors in the css color list) conflicts

between the css4/X11 names and the XKCD names. Given that these are

the standard color names of the web, matplotlib should follow these

conventions. To accesses the XKCD colors which are shadowed by css4,

prefix the colorname with ``'XKCD'``, for example ``'blue'`` maps to

``'#0000FF'`` where as ``'XKCDblue'`` maps to ``'#0343DF'``.

.. plot::

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

import matplotlib._color_data as mcd

import matplotlib.patches as mpatch

overlap = (set(mcd.CSS4_COLORS) & set(mcd.XKCD_COLORS))

fig = plt.figure(figsize=[4.8, 16])

ax = fig.add_axes([0, 0, 1, 1])

j = 0

for n in sorted(overlap, reverse=True):

cn = mcd.CSS4_COLORS[n]

xkcd = mcd.XKCD_COLORS[n].upper()

if cn != xkcd:

print (n, cn, xkcd)

r1 = mpatch.Rectangle((0, j), 1, 1, color=cn)

r2 = mpatch.Rectangle((1, j), 1, 1, color=xkcd)

txt = ax.text(2, j+.5, ' ' + n, va='center', fontsize=10)

ax.add_patch(r1)

ax.add_patch(r2)

ax.axhline(j, color='k')

j += 1

ax.text(.5, j+.1, 'X11', ha='center')

ax.text(1.5, j+.1, 'XKCD', ha='center')

ax.set_xlim(0, 3)

ax.set_ylim(0, j + 1)

ax.axis('off')

colors.rst