Plotly Cheat Sheet
Plotly reference for building interactive charts with the Express and Graph Objects APIs, subplots, and exporting to HTML or images.
2 PagesIntermediateMar 30, 2026
Plotly Express Basics
High-level API for quick interactive charts.
python
import plotly.express as pxfig = px.scatter( df, x="gdp_per_cap", y="life_exp", color="continent", size="population", hover_name="country", log_x=True,)fig.update_layout(title="Life Expectancy vs GDP")fig.show()fig2 = px.line(df, x="date", y="value", color="category")fig2.write_html("chart.html") # export interactive HTML
Graph Objects API
Low-level API for fine-grained control.
python
import plotly.graph_objects as gofig = go.Figure()fig.add_trace(go.Scatter(x=x, y=y1, mode="lines+markers", name="series A"))fig.add_trace(go.Bar(x=x, y=y2, name="series B"))fig.update_layout( xaxis_title="X", yaxis_title="Y", template="plotly_dark",)
Subplots & Export
Combine multiple charts and export static images.
python
from plotly.subplots import make_subplotsfig = make_subplots(rows=1, cols=2, subplot_titles=("Left", "Right"))fig.add_trace(go.Scatter(x=x, y=y), row=1, col=1)fig.add_trace(go.Bar(x=x, y=y2), row=1, col=2)fig.write_image("out.png") # requires the kaleido package
Common Chart Types
Frequently used Express and Graph Objects charts.
- px.scatter- scatter plot
- px.line- line chart
- px.bar- bar chart
- px.histogram- histogram
- px.box / px.violin- distribution comparison across groups
- px.choropleth- geographic map colored by value
- px.sunburst / px.treemap- hierarchical part-to-whole charts
- go.Heatmap- matrix heatmap
Pro Tip
Static image export (fig.write_image or fig.to_image) requires the separate kaleido package installed — without it, only fig.show() and fig.write_html() will work.
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