text

julia

text(positions; text, kwargs...)
text(x, y; text, kwargs...)
text(x, y, z; text, kwargs...)

Plots one or multiple texts passed via the text keyword. Text uses the PointBased conversion trait.

Plot type

The plot type alias for the text function is Text.

source

Marker space pixel

By default, text is drawn with markerspace = :pixel, which means that the text size is interpreted in pixel space. (The space of the text position is determined by the space attribute instead.)

The boundingbox of text with markerspace = :pixel will include every data point or every text anchor point but not the text itself, because its extent depends on the current projection of the axis it is in. This also means that autolimits! might cut off your text, because the glyphs don't have a meaningful size in data coordinates (the size is independent of zoom level), and you have to take some care to manually place the text or set data limits such that it is fully visible.

You can either plot one string with one position, or a vector of strings with a vector of positions.

julia

using CairoMakie
f = Figure()

Axis(f[1, 1], aspect = DataAspect(), backgroundcolor = :gray50)

scatter!(Point2f(0, 0))
text!(0, 0, text = "center", align = (:center, :center))

circlepoints = [(cos(a), sin(a)) for a in LinRange(0, 2pi, 16)[1:end-1]]
scatter!(circlepoints)
text!(
    circlepoints,
    text = "this is point " .* string.(1:15),
    rotation = LinRange(0, 2pi, 16)[1:end-1],
    align = (:right, :baseline),
    color = cgrad(:Spectral)[LinRange(0, 1, 15)]
)

f

Marker space data

For text whose dimensions are meaningful in data space, set markerspace = :data. This means that the boundingbox of the text in data coordinates will include every glyph.

julia

using CairoMakie
f = Figure()
LScene(f[1, 1])

text!(
    [Point3f(0, 0, i/2) for i in 1:7],
    text = fill("Makie", 7),
    rotation = [i / 7 * 1.5pi for i in 1:7],
    color = [cgrad(:viridis)[x] for x in LinRange(0, 1, 7)],
    align = (:left, :baseline),
    fontsize = 1,
    markerspace = :data
)

f

Alignment

Text can be aligned with the horizontal alignments :left, :center, :right and the vertical alignments :bottom, :baseline, :center, :top.

julia

using CairoMakie
aligns = [(h, v) for v in [:bottom, :baseline, :center, :top]
                 for h in [:left, :center, :right]]
x = repeat(1:3, 4)
y = repeat(1:4, inner = 3)
scatter(x, y)
text!(x, y, text = string.(aligns), align = aligns)
current_figure()

Justification

By default, justification of multiline text follows alignment. Text that is left aligned is also left justified. You can override this with the justification attribute.

julia

using CairoMakie
scene = Scene(camera = campixel!, size = (800, 800))

points = [Point(x, y) .* 200 for x in 1:3 for y in 1:3]
scatter!(scene, points, marker = :circle, markersize = 10px)

symbols = (:left, :center, :right)

for ((justification, halign), point) in zip(Iterators.product(symbols, symbols), points)

    t = text!(scene,
        point,
        text = "a\nshort\nparagraph",
        color = (:black, 0.5),
        align = (halign, :center),
        justification = justification)

    bb = boundingbox(t, :pixel)
    wireframe!(scene, bb, color = (:red, 0.2))
end

for (p, al) in zip(points[3:3:end], (:left, :center, :right))
    text!(scene, p .+ (0, 80), text = "align :" * string(al),
        align = (:center, :baseline))
end

for (p, al) in zip(points[7:9], (:left, :center, :right))
    text!(scene, p .+ (80, 0), text = "justification\n:" * string(al),
        align = (:center, :top), rotation = pi/2)
end

scene

Offset

The offset attribute can be used to shift text away from its position. This is especially useful with space = :pixel, for example to place text together with barplots. You can specify the end of the barplots in data coordinates, and then offset the text a little bit to the left.

julia

using CairoMakie
f = Figure()

horsepower = [52, 78, 80, 112, 140]
cars = ["Kia", "Mini", "Honda", "Mercedes", "Ferrari"]

ax = Axis(f[1, 1], xlabel = "horse power")
tightlimits!(ax, Left())
hideydecorations!(ax)

barplot!(horsepower, direction = :x)
text!(Point.(horsepower, 1:5), text = cars, align = (:right, :center),
    offset = (-20, 0), color = :white)

f

Relative space

The default setting of text is space = :data, which means the final position depends on the axis limits and scaling. However, it can be useful to place text relative to the axis itself, independent of scaling. With space = :relative, the position (0, 0) refers to the lower left corner and (1, 1) the upper right of the Scene that a plot object is in (for an Axis that is equivalent to the plotting area, which is implemented using a Scene).

A common scenario is to place labels within axes:

julia

using CairoMakie
f = Figure()

ax1 = Axis(f[1, 1], limits = (1, 2, 3, 4))
ax2 = Axis(f[1, 2], width = 300, limits = (5, 6, 7, 8))
ax3 = Axis(f[2, 1:2], limits = (9, 10, 11, 12))

for (ax, label) in zip([ax1, ax2, ax3], ["A", "B", "C"])
    text!(
        ax, 0, 1,
        text = label,
        font = :bold,
        align = (:left, :top),
        offset = (4, -2),
        space = :relative,
        fontsize = 24
    )
end

f

MathTeX

Makie can render LaTeX strings from the LaTeXStrings.jl package using MathTeXEngine.jl.

julia

using CairoMakie
lines(0.5..20, x -> sin(x) / sqrt(x), color = :black)
text!(7, 0.38, text = L"\frac{\sin(x)}{\sqrt{x}}", color = :black)
current_figure()

You can also pass L-strings to many objects that use text, for example as labels in the legend.

julia

using CairoMakie
f = Figure()
ax = Axis(f[1, 1])

lines!(0..10, x -> sin(3x) / (cos(x) + 2),
    label = L"\frac{\sin(3x)}{\cos(x) + 2}")
lines!(0..10, x -> sin(x^2) / (cos(sqrt(x)) + 2),
    label = L"\frac{\sin(x^2)}{\cos(\sqrt{x}) + 2}")

Legend(f[1, 2], ax)

f

Rich text

With rich text, you can conveniently plot text whose parts have different colors or fonts, and you can position sections as subscripts and superscripts. You can create such rich text objects using the functions rich, superscript, subscript, subsup and left_subsup, all of which create RichText objects.

Each of these functions takes a variable number of arguments (except subsup and left_subsup which take exactly two arguments), each of which can be a String or RichText. Each can also take keyword arguments such as color or font, to set these attributes for the given part. The top-level settings for font, color, etc. are taken from the text attributes as usual.

julia

using CairoMakie
f = Figure(fontsize = 30)
Label(
    f[1, 1],
    rich(
        "H", subscript("2"), "O is the formula for ",
        rich("water", color = :cornflowerblue, font = :italic)
    )
)

str = "A BEAUTIFUL RAINBOW"
rainbow = cgrad(:rainbow, length(str), categorical = true)
fontsizes = 30 .+ 10 .* sin.(range(0, 3pi, length = length(str)))

rainbow_chars = map(enumerate(str)) do (i, c)
    rich("$c", color = rainbow[i], fontsize = fontsizes[i])
end

Label(f[2, 1], rich(rainbow_chars...), font = :bold)

Label(f[3, 1], rich("Chemists use notations like ", left_subsup("92", "238"), "U or PO", subsup("4", "3−")))

f

Tweaking offsets

Sometimes, when using regular and italic fonts next to each other, the gaps between glyphs are too narrow or too wide. You can use the offset value for rich text to shift glyphs by an amount proportional to the fontsize.

julia

using CairoMakie
f = Figure(fontsize = 30)
Label(
    f[1, 1],
    rich(
        "ITALIC",
        superscript("Regular without x offset", font = :regular),
        font = :italic
    )
)

Label(
    f[2, 1],
    rich(
        "ITALIC",
        superscript("Regular with x offset", font = :regular, offset = (0.15, 0)),
        font = :italic
    )
)

f

Attributes

align

Defaults to (:left, :bottom)

Sets the alignment of the string w.r.t. position. Uses :left, :center, :right, :top, :bottom, :baseline or fractions.

alpha

Defaults to 1.0

The alpha value of the colormap or color attribute. Multiple alphas like in plot(alpha=0.2, color=(:red, 0.5), will get multiplied.

clip_planes

Defaults to @inherit clip_planes automatic

Clip planes offer a way to do clipping in 3D space. You can set a Vector of up to 8 Plane3f planes here, behind which plots will be clipped (i.e. become invisible). By default clip planes are inherited from the parent plot or scene. You can remove parent clip_planes by passing Plane3f[].

color

Defaults to @inherit textcolor

Sets the color of the text. One can set one color per glyph by passing a Vector{<:Colorant}, or one colorant for the whole text. If color is a vector of numbers, the colormap args are used to map the numbers to colors.

colormap

Defaults to @inherit colormap :viridis

Sets the colormap that is sampled for numeric colors. PlotUtils.cgrad(...), Makie.Reverse(any_colormap) can be used as well, or any symbol from ColorBrewer or PlotUtils. To see all available color gradients, you can call Makie.available_gradients().

colorrange

Defaults to automatic

The values representing the start and end points of colormap.

colorscale

Defaults to identity

The color transform function. Can be any function, but only works well together with Colorbar for identity, log, log2, log10, sqrt, logit, Makie.pseudolog10, Makie.Symlog10, Makie.AsinhScale, Makie.SinhScale, Makie.LogScale, Makie.LuptonAsinhScale, and Makie.PowerScale.

depth_shift

Defaults to 0.0

Adjusts the depth value of a plot after all other transformations, i.e. in clip space, where -1 <= depth <= 1. This only applies to GLMakie and WGLMakie and can be used to adjust render order (like a tunable overdraw).

font

Defaults to @inherit font

Sets the font. Can be a Symbol which will be looked up in the fonts dictionary or a String specifying the (partial) name of a font or the file path of a font file

fonts

Defaults to @inherit fonts

Used as a dictionary to look up fonts specified by Symbol, for example :regular, :bold or :italic.

fxaa

Defaults to false

Adjusts whether the plot is rendered with fxaa (anti-aliasing, GLMakie only).

glowcolor

Defaults to (:black, 0.0)

Sets the color of the glow effect around the text.

glowwidth

Defaults to 0.0

Sets the size of a glow effect around the text.

highclip

Defaults to automatic

The color for any value above the colorrange.

inspectable

Defaults to @inherit inspectable

Sets whether this plot should be seen by DataInspector. The default depends on the theme of the parent scene.

inspector_clear

Defaults to automatic

Sets a callback function (inspector, plot) -> ... for cleaning up custom indicators in DataInspector.

inspector_hover

Defaults to automatic

Sets a callback function (inspector, plot, index) -> ... which replaces the default show_data methods.

inspector_label

Defaults to automatic

Sets a callback function (plot, index, position) -> string which replaces the default label generated by DataInspector.

justification

Defaults to automatic

Sets the alignment of text w.r.t its bounding box. Can be :left, :center, :right or a fraction. Will default to the horizontal alignment in align.

lineheight

Defaults to 1.0

The lineheight multiplier.

lowclip

Defaults to automatic

The color for any value below the colorrange.

markerspace

Defaults to :pixel

Sets the space in which fontsize acts. See Makie.spaces() for possible inputs.

model

Defaults to automatic

Sets a model matrix for the plot. This overrides adjustments made with translate!, rotate! and scale!.

nan_color

Defaults to :transparent

The color for NaN values.

offset

Defaults to (0.0, 0.0)

The offset of the text from the given position in markerspace units.

overdraw

Defaults to false

Controls if the plot will draw over other plots. This specifically means ignoring depth checks in GL backends

position

Defaults to (0.0, 0.0)

Deprecated: Specifies the position of the text. Use the positional argument to text instead.

rotation

Defaults to 0.0

Rotates text around the given position

space

Defaults to :data

Sets the transformation space for box encompassing the plot. See Makie.spaces() for possible inputs.

ssao

Defaults to false

Adjusts whether the plot is rendered with ssao (screen space ambient occlusion). Note that this only makes sense in 3D plots and is only applicable with fxaa = true.

strokecolor

Defaults to (:black, 0.0)

Sets the color of the outline around a marker.

strokewidth

Defaults to 0

Sets the width of the outline around a marker.

text

Defaults to ""

Specifies one piece of text or a vector of texts to show, where the number has to match the number of positions given. Makie supports String which is used for all normal text and LaTeXString which layouts mathematical expressions using MathTeXEngine.jl.

transform_marker

Defaults to false

Controls whether the model matrix (without translation) applies to the glyph itself, rather than just the positions. (If this is true, scale! and rotate! will affect the text glyphs.)

transformation

Defaults to :automatic

No docs available.

transparency

Defaults to false

Adjusts how the plot deals with transparency. In GLMakie transparency = true results in using Order Independent Transparency.

visible

Defaults to true

Controls whether the plot will be rendered or not.

word_wrap_width

Defaults to -1

Specifies a linewidth limit for text. If a word overflows this limit, a newline is inserted before it. Negative numbers disable word wrapping.

text ​

Marker space pixel ​

Marker space data ​

Alignment ​

Justification ​

Offset ​

Relative space ​

MathTeX ​

Rich text ​

Tweaking offsets ​

Attributes ​

align ​

alpha ​

clip_planes ​

color ​

colormap ​

colorrange ​

colorscale ​

depth_shift ​

font ​

fonts ​

fontsize ​

fxaa ​

glowcolor ​

glowwidth ​

highclip ​

inspectable ​

inspector_clear ​

inspector_hover ​

inspector_label ​

justification ​

lineheight ​

lowclip ​

markerspace ​

model ​

nan_color ​

offset ​

overdraw ​

position ​

rotation ​

space ​

ssao ​

strokecolor ​

strokewidth ​

text ​

transform_marker ​

transformation ​

transparency ​

visible ​

word_wrap_width ​

text

Marker space pixel

Marker space data

Alignment

Justification

Offset

Relative space

MathTeX

Rich text

Tweaking offsets

Attributes

align

alpha

clip_planes

color

colormap

colorrange

colorscale

depth_shift

font

fonts

fontsize

fxaa

glowcolor

glowwidth

highclip

inspectable

inspector_clear

inspector_hover

inspector_label

justification

lineheight

lowclip

markerspace

model

nan_color

offset

overdraw

position

rotation

space

ssao

strokecolor

strokewidth

text

transform_marker

transformation

transparency

visible

word_wrap_width