--- name: stata-style-figures description: Style every matplotlib figure like the Stata 18/19 default (stcolor) scheme — Arial embedded as TrueType, white background, recessive light-gray grid below the data, no top/right spines, unframed legends, and the validated blue/red/gray palette. Use whenever a task generates or restyles charts, plots, or figures for papers, reports, or slides, even if the user doesn't mention Stata — this is the house style for all publication figures. Also use when asked to make figures "look like Stata", match the stcolor scheme, or restyle existing matplotlib output. ---

# Stata-style (stcolor) matplotlib figures

House style for publication figures, extracted from validated generators. Paste the rcParams block, use the palette constants, follow the grid rule, and never let a restyle change data content.

## rcParams — paste at the top of every figure script

```python plt.rcParams.update({ "font.family": "sans-serif", "font.sans-serif": ["Arial", "Helvetica", "DejaVu Sans"], "mathtext.fontset": "custom", "mathtext.rm": "Arial", "mathtext.it": "Arial:italic", "mathtext.bf": "Arial:bold", "pdf.fonttype": 42, "ps.fonttype": 42, # embed fonts as TrueType "font.size": 9, "axes.linewidth": 0.6, "axes.edgecolor": "0.2", "axes.spines.top": False, "axes.spines.right": False, "axes.axisbelow": True, }) ```

`font.size` 9 for single/1x2 panels; drop to 8.5 when panels are dense (many tick labels). Figure width 6.5 in = `\textwidth` at 1-inch margins; include at `width=\textwidth` so fonts render at stated size (no downscaling).

## Palette

```python STC_BLUE = "#1f77b4" # protagonist series STC_RED = "#d62728" # accent / contrast series STC_GRAY = "0.62" # de-emphasised series STC_BLUE_LIGHT = "#c1d9ec" # shaded bands / intervals (light step of the blue) STC_GRID = "#e3e6e8" # gridlines ```

Baseline-vs-corrected comparisons: dashed gray baseline (`color="0.50", ls="--"`) vs solid blue corrected. Background/context shading: `axvspan(..., color="0.93")`.

## Per-axes styling

```python ax.grid(axis="y", color=STC_GRID, lw=0.6, zorder=0) # horizontal gridlines only ax.tick_params(length=2.5, color="0.4") ax.legend(frameon=False) ```

Grid rule: value-axis gridlines only. Vertical charts (time series, vertical bars) get `axis="y"`; horizontal bar/dot charts get `axis="x"` instead. Never both. White figure and axes background (matplotlib default — don't set facecolors), no chart junk.

## Output format — PNG by default

Save charts, figures, and visual diagrams as `.png` unless the task explicitly asks for another format (a LaTeX manuscript pipeline that `\includegraphics` a PDF, for instance, keeps PDF):

```python fig.savefig(path.with_suffix(".png"), dpi=300) ```

300 dpi keeps text crisp at print size. The font-embedding rcParams (`pdf.fonttype`) are harmless for PNG — keep the block as is so a later PDF export just works.

## Semantics rule — restyling never changes content

A restyle touches colour and font only. Encodings that captions or notes describe — filled vs open markers, dashed vs solid lines, shading, marker sizes that carry meaning — stay exactly as they were. Verify: hash the underlying data artifacts (tables, JSON, parquet the figure is built from) before and after; they must be identical. If the generator emits a numbers JSON or .tex alongside the figure, those hashes are the check.

## Chart-type patterns

The style was validated across these chart types; the rcParams block and palette above carry everything needed to reproduce them:

- multi-panel time series with a shaded band and baseline-vs-corrected series - horizontal dot/lollipop rankings (vertical-only grid; filled/open/gray marker semantics) - median curve with a min-max band (`STC_BLUE_LIGHT` fill) - grouped-bar and reinstatement-style variants