Free Course Image Matplotlib Tutorials

Free online courseMatplotlib Tutorials

Duration of the online course: 3 hours and 33 minutes

New

Build job-ready Python data visuals fast with a free Matplotlib course—learn clear charts, time series, and subplots to share insights with confidence.

In this free course, learn about

  • Matplotlib’s primary use: creating 2D plots and visualizations in Python
  • Create and customize line plots (figure/axes, titles, labels, legends, styles)
  • Use plt.plot() to generate line plots and control colors, markers, and line styles
  • Build bar charts from data (including CSV); use plt.bar() and plt.barh() for horizontal
  • Choose pie charts for showing part-to-whole proportions and categorical composition
  • Create stack plots to visualize cumulative contributions of multiple series over x
  • Fill areas on line plots (plt.fill_between) to highlight ranges, thresholds, or deltas
  • Use histograms to show numerical distributions via bins (key difference vs bar charts)
  • Understand histogram advantages: reveal distribution shape, spread, skew, and outliers
  • Create scatter plots (plt.scatter) to examine relationships/correlation between variables
  • Plot time series data and format date ticks; use fig.autofmt_xdate() for readability
  • Make live, real-time plots to monitor streaming/updating data as it changes
  • Use subplots()/plt.subplots() to build multi-plot layouts with shared axes and control

Course Description

Turn raw numbers into visuals people understand. This free online course helps you build practical Matplotlib skills in Python so you can present data clearly, support decisions, and communicate insights with confidence. Whether you are learning programming, moving into data analysis, or improving your reporting workflow, Matplotlib is a core tool that keeps showing up in real projects because it is flexible, widely used, and works well with common data formats.

You will start by creating and customizing your first plots, learning how to control titles, labels, legends, colors, and styling so your charts look intentional instead of default. From there, you will practice selecting the right visual for the question you are trying to answer: comparisons with bar charts, proportions with pie charts when appropriate, trends with line charts, distributions with histograms, and relationships with scatter plots. You will also work with data coming from CSV files, reinforcing the everyday task of moving from a dataset to a meaningful graphic.

As you progress, you will strengthen the kind of understanding that makes your charts more than just pictures. You will learn to interpret distributions and communicate them well, choose binning strategies for histograms, and highlight changes over time using area fills and stack plots. The course also covers plotting time series data with readable date labels, a key skill for analytics dashboards and reports.

To bring everything together, you will explore real-time plotting concepts and how live charts can help you monitor changing values during experiments or ongoing processes. Finally, you will learn to compose multiple charts in a single figure using subplots, making it easier to tell a complete story and compare views side by side. With short lessons and practice questions throughout, you will build a solid foundation to create polished Python visualizations for coursework, portfolios, and professional use.

Course content

  • Video class: Matplotlib Tutorial (Part 1): Creating and Customizing Our First Plots 35m
  • Exercise: What is the primary use of the Matplotlib library in Python?
  • Video class: Matplotlib Tutorial (Part 2): Bar Charts and Analyzing Data from CSVs 34m
  • Exercise: Which of the following is a method used in Matplotlib to create a line plot?
  • Exercise: When creating bar charts in Matplotlib, what method should you use to generate horizontal bar charts?
  • Video class: Matplotlib Tutorial (Part 3): Pie Charts 17m
  • Exercise: What are pie charts best used for?
  • Video class: Matplotlib Tutorial (Part 4): Stack Plots 14m
  • Video class: Matplotlib Tutorial (Part 5): Filling Area on Line Plots 15m
  • Video class: Matplotlib Tutorial (Part 6): Histograms 16m
  • Exercise: What is the primary advantage of using histograms over bar charts when visualizing numerical data distributions?
  • Exercise: What feature differentiates histograms from traditional bar charts when visualizing data?
  • Video class: Matplotlib Tutorial (Part 7): Scatter Plots 21m
  • Exercise: What is a scatter plot primarily used for in data visualization?
  • Video class: Matplotlib Tutorial (Part 8): Plotting Time Series Data 17m
  • Exercise: What method is used in Matplotlib to automatically format the date labels on the x-axis for better readability?
  • Video class: Matplotlib Tutorial (Part 9): Plotting Live Data in Real-Time 20m
  • Exercise: What is the primary purpose of creating real-time plots in Python using Matplotlib?
  • Video class: Matplotlib Tutorial (Part 10): Subplots 21m
  • Exercise: What is the primary advantage of using the 'subplots()' method in matplotlib?
  • Exercise: What is the benefit of using the 'subplots' method in Matplotlib?

This free course includes:

3 hours and 33 minutes of online video course

Digital certificate of course completion (Free)

Exercises to train your knowledge

100% free, from content to certificate

Ready to get started?Download the app and get started today.

Install the app now

to access the course
Icon representing technology and business courses

Over 5,000 free courses

Programming, English, Digital Marketing and much more! Learn whatever you want, for free.

Calendar icon with target representing study planning

Study plan with AI

Our app's Artificial Intelligence can create a study schedule for the course you choose.

Professional icon representing career and business

From zero to professional success

Improve your resume with our free Certificate and then use our Artificial Intelligence to find your dream job.

You can also use the QR Code or the links below.

QR Code - Download Cursa - Online Courses

More free courses at Programming Languages ( Python, Ruby, Java, C )

Free Ebook + Audiobooks! Learn by listening or reading!

Download the App now to have access to + 5000 free courses, exercises, certificates and lots of content without paying anything!

  • 100% free online courses from start to finish

    Thousands of online courses in video, ebooks and audiobooks.

  • More than 60 thousand free exercises

    To test your knowledge during online courses

  • Valid free Digital Certificate with QR Code

    Generated directly from your cell phone's photo gallery and sent to your email

Cursa app on the ebook screen, the video course screen and the course exercises screen, plus the course completion certificate