import pylab as plt import numpy as np plt.style.use('ggplot') fig = plt.figure(1) ax = plt.gca() # make some testing data x = np.linspace( 0, np.pi, 1000 ) test_f = lambda x: np.sin(x)*3 + np.cos(2*x) # plot the test data ax.plot( x, test_f(x) , lw = 2) # set the axis labels ax.set_xlabel(r'$x$', fontsize=14, labelpad=10) ax.set_ylabel(r'$f(x)$', fontsize=14, labelpad=25, rotation=0) # set axis limits ax.set_xlim(0,np.pi) plt.draw()