Andy McDonald

As geoscientists, one thing we either love (or hate depending on your point of view) are tables! We see them everywhere from geological reports to lab test results. Oftentimes, this data is either in the form of a report or an Excel spreadsheet. However, what do we use if we want to work with tables in Python? You may be familiar with using Pandas to create, manipulate and display tabular data, which is great, but sometimes you want to add a bit of style to the table in the console.

Two lightweight tools that help you see what your code is doing without the clutter or confusion of print statements When writing Python code, it is very easy to add print() statements through your code to help debug it. However, doing this isn’t the most efficient way. It can lead to cluttered code and confusing output (especially if you are just printing the variable values with no context).

Using Plotly rectangle shapes to improve data visualisation Adding gradients or segments to the background of a plot can help improve the clarity of the information that you are trying to present. It can help draw attention to areas that are high or low, or it can be used to identify if a measurement is going out of tolerance.