Creating beautiful charts using Matplotlib

This recipe introduces us to the Matplotlib Python module, which enables us to create visual charts using Python 3.

The following URL is a great place to start exploring the world of Matplotlib and will teach you how to create many charts that are not presented in this chapter:

http://matplotlib.org/users/screenshots.html

Getting ready

In order to use the Matplotlib Python module, we first have to install this module, as well as several other related Python modules such as numpy.

If you are running a version of Python less than 3.4.3, I would encourage you to upgrade your version of Python as we will be using the Python pip module throughout this chapter to install the required Python modules, and pip is installed with 3.4.3 and above.

Note

It is possible to install pip with earlier versions of Python 3 but the process is not very intuitive, so it is definitely better to upgrade to 3.4.3 or above.

How to do it...

The following picture is an example of...