>>Not sure why you are having trouble. >>htdocs/screenshots/finance_work2.py is working for me >>with matplotlib CVS, 0.83.2 and 0.83 After seeing that it worked with finance_work2.py and spending the better half of today on it. It turns out that setp(axMiddle.get_xticklabels(), 'horizontalalignment', 'right', fontsize=textSize, rotation=45) has to be right before the show() or the savefig() for the text to show correctly. In previous version of matplotlib it did not matter but with 0.83 it has to be after you have finished plotting. Thanks for your help. VJ