Matplotlib Display Dollar Signs in Tick Labels (Strings)

dollar-sign, format, label, matplotlib, python

Solution

Escape the dollar signs with a backslash so that Matplotlib does not interpret them as indicating the beginning (or ending) of LaTeX math mode:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

categories = ['\$0-\$10','\$10-\$20','\$20-\$30']
y_pos = np.arange(len(categories))
data = 3 + 10 * np.random.rand(len(categories))

plt.barh(y_pos, data, align='center', alpha=0.4)
plt.yticks(y_pos, categories)

plt.show()

Problem

I can't figure out how to display dollar signs in tick labels that are not numbers, but strings. Here's an example of what I mean: ``` import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np categories = ['$0-$10','$10-$20','$20-$30'] y_pos = np.arange(len(categories)) data = 3 + 10 * np.random.rand(len(categories)) plt.barh(y_pos, data, align='center', alpha=0.4) plt.yticks(y_pos, categories) plt.show() ``` Yields: I tried this, which works with thousands of dollars: ``` fmt = '${x:,.0f}' tick = mtick.StrMethodFormatter(fmt) plt.yaxis.set_major_formatter(tick) ``` ...but no luck with strings like I have here.

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