PDFTex

An easy way to generate PDF files which could be imported into overleaf with python/matplotlib

Perquisites

apt get install inkscape

Installation

pip install pdftex==1.0.0

Example

import numpy as np
import matplotlib as mpl
mpl.use('module://pdftex.pdftex')

fig, ax = plt.subplots(nrows=1, figsize=(10, 5))
ax.plot(np.arange(5), np.arange(5)*5+1)
ax.set_xlabel("\$\\alpha\$")
fig.savefig('test.pdf_tex')

If everything goes through as it should, two files are generated:

test.pdf_tex test.pdf

Put these two files always together when using in your LaTeX document.

An example of importing the generated figures in LaTex document is:

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \def\svgwidth{12.0cm}
    \input{test.pdf_tex}
    \caption{A sample figure.}
    \label{fig:test}
\end{figure}