To learn programming, we often start with printing the "Hello world!" message. For graphical plots that contain all the elements from data, axes, labels, lines and ticks, how should we begin?

This chapter gives an overview of Matplotlib's functionalities and latest features. We will guide you through the setup of the Matplotlib plotting environment. You will learn to create a simple line graph, view, and save your figures. By the end of this chapter, you will be confident enough to start building your own plots and be ready to learn about customization and more advanced techniques in the coming sections.

Come and say "Hello!" to the world of plots!

Here is a list of topics covered in this chapter:

• What is Matplotlib?
• Plotting the first simple line graph
• Loading data into Matplotlib
• Exporting the figure