Re: python plotting with greek symbols within labels recommendations?

[Michael Gilbert <michael.s.gilbert@gmail.com>]

I didn't realize my phrasing would sound so harsh.  Trust me I
meant no disdain toward the matplotlib developers.  My intention
was to convey that TeX formatting didn't work the way I expected it out
of the box.

However, a little more searching today, and I find that you can simply
toggle a switch to tell matplotlib to use TeX as the font backend
instead of its standard (less functional) implementation.  For
example

import pylab
pylab.rc('text', usetex=True)
pylab.xlabel(r'my data $\alpha$')
pylab.plot(range(0,5))
pylab.show()

is a simple python script that will do propper TeX and normal formatted
fonts.  The key element enabling true TeX parsing is the rc
command.

Thanks for all your thoughts.