Backport PR #19532: Add note on interaction between text wrapping and bbox_inches='tight'

timhoffm · meeseeksmachine · commit a0ba17ef3d43 · 2021-02-19T07:20:31.000Z
diff --git a/examples/text_labels_and_annotations/autowrap.py b/examples/text_labels_and_annotations/autowrap.py
@@ -5,6 +5,13 @@
 
 Matplotlib can wrap text automatically, but if it's too long, the text will be
 displayed slightly outside of the boundaries of the axis anyways.
+
+Note: Auto-wrapping does not work together with
+``savefig(..., bbox_inches='tight')``. The 'tight' setting rescales the canvas
+to accommodate all content and happens before wrapping. This affects
+``%matplotlib inline`` in IPython and Jupyter notebooks where the inline
+setting uses ``bbox_inches='tight'`` by default when saving the image to
+embed.
 """
 
 import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/text.py b/lib/matplotlib/text.py
@@ -544,6 +544,14 @@ def set_wrap(self, wrap):
         Parameters
         ----------
         wrap : bool
+
+        Notes
+        -----
+        Wrapping does not work together with
+        ``savefig(..., bbox_inches='tight')`` (which is also used internally
+        by ``%matplotlib inline`` in IPython/Jupyter). The 'tight' setting
+        rescales the canvas to accommodate all content and happens before
+        wrapping.
         """
         self._wrap = wrap
 
