Minor and major tick marks both in and out on all subplot x-axes

Question

I am having a subplot series where I want to display both minor and major tick marks on all x-axis in inner and outer directions for all of them. I tried something like :

fig, ax = plt.subplots(3,figsize=(10,6), sharex=True, gridspec_kw={'height_ratios': [3, 1,1]})
plt.subplots_adjust(hspace=.0)
ax[0].tick_params(top=True, labeltop=False, bottom=True, labelbottom=False, direction="in")

But some ticks on the top axix of the top plot are inwards some others are outward

You could try `for ax_in ax: ax_i.tick_params(axis='x', top=True, labeltop=False, bottom=True, labelbottom=False, direction="inout")`. So, `axis='x'` to avoid `y` also being changed. And `direction='inout'`. Note that the middle subplot will hide the outside ticks of the upper subplot; with `ax[1].set_facecolor('none')` the middle plot could have a transparent background. — JohanC, Mar 02 '23 at 23:16
@JohanC this kinda works for the major ticks, but not for the minor ones. Perhaps relevant: I am on a log scale. — Py-ser, Mar 03 '23 at 08:49

thmslmr · Accepted Answer · 2023-03-03T08:54:26.447

Starting from a loop over the axis, using the tick_params() call you already have:

for ax in axs:
    ax.tick_params(top=True, labeltop=False, bottom=True, labelbottom=False, direction="in")

I want to display both minor and major tick marks

Use the which parameter set to "both", which is by default "major".

ax.tick_params(which="both", top=True, labeltop=False, bottom=True, labelbottom=False, direction="in")

on all x-axis

Use the axis parameter set to "x", which is by default "both".

ax.tick_params(axis="x", which="both", top=True, labeltop=False, bottom=True, labelbottom=False, direction="in")

in inner and outer directions for all of them

Set the direction parameter to inout instead of in.

ax.tick_params(axis="x", which="both", top=True, labeltop=False, bottom=True, labelbottom=False, direction="inout")

Displaying the grid, here is the result

fig, axs = plt.subplots(3,figsize=(10,6), sharex=True, gridspec_kw={'height_ratios': [3, 1,1]})
plt.subplots_adjust(hspace=0)

for ax in axs:
    ax.tick_params(axis="x", which="both", top=True, labeltop=False, bottom=True, labelbottom=False, direction="inout")

It's hard to see the ticks on the figure, you might want to play with the length parameter of the tick_params() function. Example:

Reference: Axes.tick_params doc

Minor and major tick marks both in and out on all subplot x-axes

1 Answers1