Font family is not set on log-scaled tick labels

Bug report

Bug summary

Setting the font family through rcParams doesn't impact tick labels if the axis is log-scaled. The size of the font can be changed, but not the family (e.g. using the serif font).

Code for reproduction

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import rcParams

rcParams['font.family'] = 'serif'
rcParams['font.size'] = 16

x = [0, 1, 2]
y = [1, 100, 10000]

plt.plot(x, y)
plt.yscale('log')
plt.savefig('logscaled.png')
plt.clf()

plt.plot(x, y)
plt.savefig('not-logscaled.png')

Actual outcome

As seen in this screenshot, the linear-scaled y-axis on the left has a serif font while the log-scaled y-axis on the right still has the default sans-serif font. In both cases the font size is set appropriately to 16. It's just the font family that doesn't change. (Pardon the 'shadow' between the two images, that's my Mac, not matplotlib).

Expected outcome

The code should produce tick labels on log-scaled axes with the specified font family.

Matplotlib version

Mac OS X 10.10.5
python 3.5, installed from a Mac installer pkg
matplotlib 2.0.0 - upgraded February 3 with python3 -m pip install --upgrade matplotlib

I can reproduce this bug, and it isn't present on 1.5.3

This is likely something fishy with mathtext...

Bisects to 6bfd8b1

This isn't just isolated to tick labels. It's anywhere you put in math expressions in a byte string. Add plt.title(r'byte string with $m_at_h$') to the example code above and it will show that the text switches from serif to sans-serif for the rendered math.

what do you mean by 'byte string'?

In my case this can be solved with:

from matplotlib import rc
rc('mathtext', default='regular')

which will use your specified font for math text, such as the $10^{x}$ being used for logscale tick labels.

I think this has to do with the mathdefault shim for for preserving the classic style. Using just 2.0 defaults the LogFormaterMathtext ignores font.family. After style.use('classic') they are respected.

Actually I think the shim is wrong and uncessary:

def _mathdefault(s):
    """
    For backward compatibility, in classic mode we display
    sub/superscripted text in a mathdefault block.  As of 2.0, the
    math font already matches the default font, so we don't need to do
    that anymore.
    """
    if rcParams['_internal.classic_mode']:
        return '\\mathdefault{%s}' % s
    else:
        return '{%s}' % s

The assumption of that the math font equals the regular font is not true in general.

As a workaround

import matplotlib.ticker
matplotlib.ticker._mathdefault = lambda x: '\\mathdefault{%s}'%x

Removing this shim and always using '\\mathdefault' seems like a reasonable change.

BUG: Remove mathtext default shim for ticker (Fixes matplotlib#8017)

Merge pull request #8354 from dopplershift/remove-shim

Closed by #8354

I've noticed the workaround suggested doesn't work for cases where tick labels like "2 x 10³" appear. These are styled with dejavu sans and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to change them. They don't seem to use the usual mathtext or even roman

import matplotlib.ticker
from matplotlib import rc
matplotlib.ticker._mathdefault = lambda x: '\\mathdefault{%s}'%x
rc('mathtext', fontset='custom')
rc('mathtext', default='regular')
rc('mathtext', rm='serif')
font_path = 'C:\Windows\Fonts\Roboto-Bold_0.ttf'
font_prop = font_manager.FontProperties(fname=font_path, size=11)
...
for label in (ax.get_xticklabels() + ax.get_yticklabels()):
    label.set_fontproperties(font_prop)
plt.xlabel(r"Regular txt, ${math txt, \mathrm{rm math txt}}$", fontproperties=font_prop)

@binaryfunt

@binaryfunt Can you open a new issue for that?

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Font family is not set on log-scaled tick labels #8017

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Font family is not set on log-scaled tick labels #8017

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dstansby commented on Feb 5, 2017

tacaswell commented on Feb 5, 2017

dstansby commented on Feb 5, 2017

kbwestfall commented on Feb 7, 2017

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tacaswell commented on Apr 17, 2017

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