[Matplotlib-devel] Multi-colored Text

[Michael W. Lance]

Hello,

I have become increasingly frustrated with something that should really be simple in MPL: I want to be able to easily modify the colors of each word (or even letter) of a title (or text) in a plot (inside or outside of the axes).
On the MPL site, there is this:
http://matplotlib.org/1.5.0/examples/text_labels_and_annotations/rainbow_text.html
But there are 2 problems with this approach:

1.       It results in uneven spacing between words

and

2.       I cannot figure out how to apply a custom font style

Here is some sample code:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.rcdefaults()
%matplotlib inline
from matplotlib import transforms

fig = plt.figure(figsize=(4,3), dpi=300)
hfont = {'fontname':'Nexa_Light.otf'}

def rainbow_text(x, y, strings, colors, ax=None, **kw):

    if ax is None:
        ax = plt.gca()
        t = ax.transData
        canvas = ax.figure.canvas

    #horizontal version
    for s, c in zip(strings, colors):
        text = ax.text(x, y,' '+s+' ', color=c, transform=t, **kw)
        text.draw(canvas.get_renderer())
        ex = text.get_window_extent()
        t = transforms.offset_copy(text._transform, x=ex.width-5, units='dots')
    print(ex)
plt.show()

rainbow_text(0.2,1.05,"This is a long sentence. I hope it works out well.".split(),
        ['b','r','g','orange','g','b','black','orange','g','b'],
        size=12,**hfont)

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