Folks, We are happy to announce matplotlib v2.0.0rc1 ! This is the first release candidate for the long awaited v2.0 release. For the full details of what is new please see http://matplotlib.org/2.0.0rc1/users/whats_new.html . Some of the highlights: - new default styles ( http://matplotlib.org/2.0.0rc1/users/dflt_style_changes.html ) - default font include most western alphabets - performance improvements in text and image rendering - vastly improved log scale ticks - many bug fixes and documentation improvements Please help us by testing the release candidate. To make this easy we have provided both wheels and conda packages for mac, linux and windows. You can install pre-releases via pip: pip install --pre matplotlib or via conda: conda install -c conda-forge/label/rc -c conda-forge matplotlib For more details see http://matplotlib.org/style_changes.html . Please report any issues to https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues or matplotlib-users@python.org . The target for v2.0 final is around late Dec 2016/early Jan 2017. We anticipate there being at least 1 more release candidate. This release is the work of over 200 individual code contributors and many more who took part in the discussions, tested the beta releases, and reported bug reports. Thank you to everyone who contributed! Tom ps As of sending this email we are still waiting on the mac conda packages to finish building, (see https://travis-ci.org/conda-forge/matplotlib-feedstock/builds/181541792) Should be done in the next few hours, but I want to go to bed ;)