Python/Matplotlib colorbar-ticklabel distance

Question

Does anyone know how to change the distance of the colorbar ticklabels with respect to the colorbar in Python/Matplotlib? Thanks!

So for example, here I would like to move the 0, 0.5 and 1.0 to the left or right with respect to the colorbar:

Answer 1

Borrowing from the standalone colourbars example, this shows how to

• change the spacing between the tickmarks (just specify them manually)

• change the distance of the ticklabels to the colourbar. The trick here is to obtain the relevant axis (cb1.ax) and apply the right tick parameter (pad=...).

 

from matplotlib import pyplot
import matplotlib as mpl
fig = pyplot.figure(figsize=(8,3))
ax1 = fig.add_axes([0.05, 0.70, 0.9, 0.15])
ax2 = fig.add_axes([0.05, 0.35, 0.9, 0.15])
cmap = mpl.cm.cool
norm = mpl.colors.Normalize(vmin=5, vmax=10)
cb1 = mpl.colorbar.ColorbarBase(ax1, cmap=cmap, norm=norm,
                                orientation='horizontal')
cb1.set_label('Negative spacing')
cb1.set_ticks([5.5, 7.5, 9.5])
cb1.ax.xaxis.set_tick_params(pad=-15)
cb2 = mpl.colorbar.ColorbarBase(ax2, cmap=cmap, norm=norm,
                            orientation='horizontal')
cb2.set_label('Far away')
cb2.set_ticks([5.5, 7.5, 9.5])
cb2.ax.xaxis.set_tick_params(pad=30)
pyplot.savefig('colorbar-ticklabels.png')