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I want to hide my ticks label on a plot I created, but keep this tick itself (the little marks on the axis). When I try to use what I've found here, for example, the entire tick is removed, and not just the labels. How can I remove only the labels then?

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Yotam
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4 Answers4

133

Here is a slightly simpler answer, using ax.tick_params

import matplotlib.pylab as plt

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
plt.plot([1,2,3],[4,5,6])

ax.tick_params(labelbottom=False)    

plt.show()

Here is the resulting output in Matplotlib 3

enter image description here

As commented by @chris, one can similarly hide the labels on any of the other axes using labeltop, labelleft, labelright, in the above example, instead of labelbottom.

divenex
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    note for those arriving here to find out how to hide labels on other axes, `ax.tick_params` accepts the following keyword args: `labelbottom`, `labeltop`, `labelleft`, `labelright` – chris Sep 10 '19 at 15:09
  • Better than the accepted answer, IMO. – irene Mar 27 '22 at 07:44
  • Also prefer this method, as the ax.set_xticklabels([]) method also disables the get_major_formatter().get_offset() – Maurits Houck Jul 06 '23 at 17:41
20

Set the tick labels not to be an empty array, but to be a list of empty strings. In the example below, I've replaced the xtick labels with empty strings, leaving the y axis untouched. From here you can selectively keep certain labels if you wished.

import pylab as plt

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot([1,2,3],[4,5,6])

labels = [item.get_text() for item in ax.get_xticklabels()]

empty_string_labels = ['']*len(labels)
ax.set_xticklabels(empty_string_labels)

plt.show()

enter image description here

This code is adapted from a previous answer.

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Hooked
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    you can do `ax.set_yticklabels([])` without having to initialise a list of empty strings. – Chidi Aug 14 '19 at 11:02
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I didn't find divenex's answer to work for me. This answer creates ticks without triggering any automatic labeling, hence no requirement to use "labelbottom= False":

if the bottom and left ticks already exist: 

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
plt.plot([1,2,3],[4,5,6])

ax.tick_params(right= True,top= True)

if no ticks already exist:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
plt.plot([1,2,3],[4,5,6])

ax.tick_params(right= True,top= True,left= True, bottom= True)
jbplasma
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import matplotlib.pylab as plt

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
plt.plot([1,2,3],[4,5,6])

ax.set_xticklabels([])

plt.show()
SYuan
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