How do I make facet plots with one axis title (instead of repeated, per-subplot axis titles)?

đź“Š Plotly Python
1

I’m calling px.scatter with facet_row and facet_col. By default, this creates subplots with repeated axis titles. This can be seen in the docs here, Facet and trellis plots in Python, where in the first example “total_bill” shows up under each subplot:

what’s the best practice for creating a facet figure with one axis title for all subplots?

related: https://community.plotly.com/t/subplots-how-to-add-master-axis-titles/

1 Like
2

Hi @grisaitis, the only way I found is to use annotations. An example:

import plotly.express as px
df = px.data.tips()

fig = px.scatter(df, x='total_bill', y='tip', facet_col='sex', facet_row='time')

# turn off axis titels of all axes
fig.for_each_xaxis(lambda x: x.update({'title': ''}))
fig.for_each_yaxis(lambda y: y.update({'title': ''}))

# add annotations
fig.add_annotation(
    showarrow=False,
    xanchor='center',
    xref='paper', 
    x=0.5, 
    yref='paper',
    y=-0.2,
    text='Master x- axis'
)
fig.add_annotation(
    showarrow=False,
    xanchor='center',
    xref='paper', 
    x=-0.04, 
    yanchor='middle',
    yref='paper',
    y=0.5,
    textangle=90,
    text='Master y- axis'
)

creates:

newplot (15)
newplot (15)1061Ă—360 21.9 KB

3

thank you, @AIMPED

Would love to know if there’s a better way.

To me, this approach is simply not worth the complexity and manual effort (eg specifying x and y for each annotation, which might vary by the figure)

4

I understand this perfectly! Unfortunately I don’t have any alternative solution.