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Styles

PeerStyle has two kinds of styles:

  • Presets — complete looks for a specific journal or context.
  • Modifiers — focused single-purpose tweaks that layer on top of a preset.

Stack them by passing a list:

peerstyle.use_style(['ieee', 'bright', 'no-latex'])

All bundled styles are registered with Matplotlib on import under a peerstyle. prefix, so they work anywhere a style name is accepted:

plt.style.use('peerstyle.nature')
plt.style.use(['peerstyle.ieee', 'peerstyle.muted'])

Quick reference

Name Type Font Figure width DPI
custom_style preset LaTeX serif 3.5 in 300
ieee preset Times New Roman 3.5 in 300
nature preset Arial/Helvetica 89 mm 300
poster preset sans-serif 12 in 150
no-latex modifier STIX (serif) — —
despine modifier — — —
notebook modifier — 6 in 100
bright modifier — — —
muted modifier — — —
grayscale modifier — — —

Presets

custom_style

General-purpose serif scientific style. Enables LaTeX text rendering, 300 DPI, and grid lines. A good starting point for any journal that does not have a specific preset.

custom_style

Key settings: text.usetex: True · font.family: serif · figure.figsize: 3.5×2.625 in · figure.dpi: 300

ieee

Follows IEEE journal submission guidelines. Times New Roman, inward ticks on all four sides, minor ticks enabled, and a CVD-friendly color cycle.

ieee

Key settings: font.serif: Times New Roman · figure.figsize: 3.5×2.625 in · xtick.direction: in · xtick.minor.visible: True

nature

Follows Nature journal submission guidelines. Arial/Helvetica, compact font sizes, outward ticks, 89 mm single-column width.

nature

Key settings: font.family: sans-serif · figure.figsize: 3.504×2.628 in · axes.labelsize: 7 · xtick.labelsize: 5

poster

High-visibility style for conference posters. Large fonts, thick lines, vibrant colors, 150 DPI.

poster

Key settings: figure.figsize: 12×9 in · lines.linewidth: 4 · axes.titlesize: 40

Modifiers

Modifiers are designed to be stacked on top of a preset. Applied alone they modify matplotlib's default style.

no-latex

Disables LaTeX and switches to STIX fonts, which are visually close to Computer Modern. Use this on machines without a LaTeX install, or anywhere text.usetex: True would fail.

peerstyle.use_style(['ieee', 'no-latex'])
peerstyle.use_style(['custom_style', 'no-latex'])

Automatic fallback

PeerStyle applies this fallback automatically when LaTeX is enabled in the preset but latex is not found on your system.

Key settings: text.usetex: False · mathtext.fontset: stix · font.family: serif

despine

Removes the top and right axis spines. Standard in biology, statistics, and data science.

despine

peerstyle.use_style(['nature', 'despine'])

Key settings: axes.spines.top: False · axes.spines.right: False

notebook

Bumps fonts and figure size for Jupyter notebooks, where journal-sized figures are too small to read on screen. Also disables LaTeX.

notebook

peerstyle.use_style(['nature', 'notebook'])
peerstyle.use_style(['ieee', 'notebook'])

Key settings: figure.figsize: 6×4.5 in · figure.dpi: 100 · font.size: 12 · text.usetex: False

bright

Paul Tol's CVD-safe bright colour palette. Distinguishable by people with colour-vision deficiency and in greyscale print.

bright

peerstyle.use_style(['ieee', 'bright'])

Colors: #4477AA · #EE6677 · #228833 · #CCBB44 · #66CCEE · #AA3377 · #BBBBBB

muted

Paul Tol's CVD-safe muted colour palette. Softer than bright and better when you have many series.

muted

peerstyle.use_style(['nature', 'muted'])

Colors: #332288 · #88CCEE · #44AA99 · #117733 · #999933 · #DDCC77 · #CC6677 · #882255 · #AA4499

grayscale

Black and grey tones with varied linestyles. Use this to verify monochrome readability or to meet journal requirements for B&W print.

grayscale

peerstyle.use_style(['ieee', 'grayscale'])

Key settings: varied color + linestyle cycle · image.cmap: gray