Hover Text and Formatting in Python

How to use hover text and formatting in Python with Plotly.

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Plotly is a free and open-source graphing library for Python. We recommend you read our Getting Started guide for the latest installation or upgrade instructions, then move on to our Plotly Fundamentals tutorials or dive straight in to some Basic Charts tutorials.

Hover text with Plotly Express¶

Many Plotly Express functions support configurable hover text. The hover_data argument accepts a list of column names to be added to the hover tooltip. The hover_name property controls which column is displayed in bold as the tooltip title.

Here is an example that creates a scatter plot using Plotly Express with custom hover data and a custom hover name.

In [1]:

import plotly.express as px

df_2007 = px.data.gapminder().query("year==2007")

fig = px.scatter(df_2007, x="gdpPercap", y="lifeExp", log_x=True,
                 hover_name="country", hover_data=["continent"])

fig.show()

Add Hover Text¶

In [2]:

import plotly.graph_objects as go

fig = go.Figure()

fig.add_trace(go.Scatter(
    x=[1, 2, 3, 4, 5],
    y=[2, 1, 6, 4, 4],
    hovertext=["Text A", "Text B", "Text C", "Text D", "Text E"],
    hoverinfo="text",
    marker=dict(
        color="green"
    ),
    showlegend=False
))

fig.show()

Format Hover Text¶

In [3]:

import plotly.graph_objects as go


fig = go.Figure(go.Scatter(
    x=[1, 2, 3, 4, 5],
    y=[2.02825, 1.63728, 6.83839, 4.8485, 4.73463],
    hoverinfo="y",
    marker=dict(
        color="green"
    ),
    showlegend=False
))

fig.update_layout(
    title_text=("Set hover text formatting<br>" +
                "<a href= https://github.com/d3/d3-time-format/blob/master/README.md#locale_format>" +
                "https://github.com/d3/d3-time-format/blob/master/README.md#locale_format</a>"),
    title_font=dict(
        size=10
    ),
)

fig.update_xaxes(zeroline=False)
fig.update_yaxes(hoverformat=".2f")

fig.show()

To customize the tooltip on your graph you can use hovertemplate, which is a template string used for rendering the information that appear on hoverbox. This template string can include variables in %{variable} format, numbers in d3-format's syntax, and date in d3-time-format's syntax. Hovertemplate customize the tooltip text vs. texttemplate which customizes the text that appears on your chart.
Set the horizontal alignment of the text within tooltip with hoverlabel.align.

In [4]:

import plotly.graph_objects as go

fig = go.Figure(go.Scatter(
    x = [1,2,3,4,5],
    y = [2.02825,1.63728,6.83839,4.8485,4.73463],
    hovertemplate =
    '<i>Price</i>: $%{y:.2f}'+
    '<br><b>X</b>: %{x}<br>'+
    '<b>%{text}</b>',
    text = ['Custom text {}'.format(i + 1) for i in range(5)],
    showlegend = False))

fig.add_trace(go.Scatter(
    x = [1,2,3,4,5],
    y = [3.02825,2.63728,4.83839,3.8485,1.73463],
    hovertemplate = 'Price: %{y:$.2f}<extra></extra>',
    showlegend = False))

fig.update_layout(
    hoverlabel_align = 'right',
    title = "Set hover text with hovertemplate")

fig.show()

In [5]:

import plotly.graph_objects as go

fig = go.Figure(go.Pie(
    name = "",
    values = [2, 5, 3, 2.5],
    labels = ["R", "Python", "Java Script", "Matlab"],
    text = ["textA", "TextB", "TextC", "TextD"],
    hovertemplate = "%{label}: <br>Popularity: %{percent} </br> %{text}"
))

fig.show()

Advanced Hover Template¶

The following example shows how to format hover template. Here is an example to see how to format hovertemplate in Dash.

In [6]:

import plotly.graph_objects as go
import plotly.express as px
import pandas as pd
import math

data = px.data.gapminder()
df_2007 = data[data['year']==2007]
df_2007 = df_2007.sort_values(['continent', 'country'])

bubble_size = []

for index, row in df_2007.iterrows():
    bubble_size.append(math.sqrt(row['pop']))

df_2007['size'] = bubble_size
continent_names = ['Africa', 'Americas', 'Asia', 'Europe', 'Oceania']
continent_data = {continent:df_2007.query("continent == '%s'" %continent)
                              for continent in continent_names}

fig = go.Figure()

for continent_name, continent in continent_data.items():
    fig.add_trace(go.Scatter(
        x=continent['gdpPercap'],
        y=continent['lifeExp'],
        name=continent_name,
        text=df_2007['continent'],
        hovertemplate=
        "<b>%{text}</b><br><br>" +
        "GDP per Capita: %{y:$,.0f}<br>" +
        "Life Expectation: %{x:.0%}<br>" +
        "Population: %{marker.size:,}" +
        "<extra></extra>",
        marker_size=continent['size'],
        ))

fig.update_traces(
    mode='markers',
    marker={'sizemode':'area',
            'sizeref':10})

fig.update_layout(
    xaxis={
        'title':'GDP per capita',
        'type':'log'},
    yaxis={'title':'Life Expectancy (years)'})

fig.show()

Adding other data to the hover with customdata and a hovertemplate¶

go traces have a customdata argument in which you can add an array, which outer dimensions should have the same dimensions as the plotted data. You can then use customdata inside a hovertemplate to display the value of customdata.

In [7]:

import plotly.graph_objects as go
from plotly.subplots import make_subplots
import numpy as np
np.random.seed(0)
z1, z2, z3 = np.random.random((3, 7, 7))
customdata = np.dstack((z2, z3))
fig = make_subplots(1, 2, subplot_titles=['z1', 'z2'])
fig.add_trace(go.Heatmap(
    z=z1,
    customdata=np.dstack((z2, z3)),
    hovertemplate='<b>z1:%{z:.3f}</b><br>z2:%{customdata[0]:.3f} <br>z3: %{customdata[1]:.3f} ',
    coloraxis="coloraxis1", name=''),
    1, 1)
fig.add_trace(go.Heatmap(
    z=z2,
    customdata=np.dstack((z1, z3)),
    hovertemplate='z1:%{customdata[0]:.3f} <br><b>z2:%{z:.3f}</b><br>z3: %{customdata[1]:.3f} ',
    coloraxis="coloraxis1", name=''),
    1, 2)
fig.update_layout(title_text='Hover to see the value of z1, z2 and z3 together')
fig.show()

Set Hover Template in Mapbox¶

In [8]:

import plotly.graph_objects as go

token = open(".mapbox_token").read() # you need your own token

fig = go.Figure(go.Scattermapbox(
    name = "",
    mode = "markers+text+lines",
    lon = [-75, -80, -50],
    lat = [45, 20, -20],
    marker = {'size': 20, 'symbol': ["bus", "harbor", "airport"]},
    hovertemplate =
    "<b>%{marker.symbol} </b><br><br>" +
    "longitude: %{lon}<br>" +
    "latitude: %{lat}<br>" ))

fig.update_layout(
    mapbox = {
        'accesstoken': token,
        'style': "outdoors", 'zoom': 1},
    showlegend = False)

fig.show()

Reference¶

See https://plot.ly/python/reference/ for more information and chart attribute options!