`to_html` method does not output a renderable HTML string in Jupyter

[jonsnowseven]

Hello.

I am having an issue rendering the HTML content outputted from to_html method.

Versions

• Python 3.8
• Plotly 4.14.3

Code to reproduce

import plotly.express as px
from IPython.display import HTML

df = px.data.iris()
fig = px.scatter(df, x="sepal_width", y="sepal_length", color="species")
HTML(fig.to_html())

Output

Browser page inspection (from Brave)

[j-carson]

Have you tried it this way?

from IPython.display import display, HTML
...
display(HTML(fig.to_html())

[jonsnowseven]

@j-carson, It should be the same outcome because Jupyter displays the last line of the cell. Nonetheless, I tried and had the same result (no content is shown).

[nicolaskruchten]

I'm confused about what the use-case is for this, vs fig.show() ?

[jonsnowseven]

@nicolaskruchten, I want to export the Plotly graph as HTML to use in other environments. When I tried to load the HTML content produced by to_html, the outcome was not the expected. Hence, I got reproducible code to show that the HTML export did not behave as expected.

[nicolaskruchten]

Does fig.write_html("path/to/file.html") result in a usable HTML file for you?

[nicolaskruchten]

If you look at the docstring for to_html you might find some options there that would let you get the output you're looking for... by default it outputs a whole HTML file, which is likely not what you want to be injecting into notebook output... Try using full_html=False to see if it does what you're looking for?

[jonsnowseven]

I tried both those options like this:

import io
import plotly.express as px
from IPython.display import HTML, display
df = px.data.iris()
fig = px.scatter(df, x="sepal_width", y="sepal_length", color="species")
string_io = io.StringIO()
fig.write_html(string_io, full_html=False) # also tried with full_html=True
HTML(string_io.getvalue())

But both were unsuccessful in showing the HTML content. Although, if I save the content in an HTML file and open it in my browser, I can see the plot correctly.

[nicolaskruchten]

That's not super surprising... the HTML that comes out of to_html() is not particularly designed to be injected into Jupyter like this... that use-case is what fig.show() is for :)

[jonsnowseven]

Yes, I understand that. I was expecting to render the HTML output from to_html wherever HTML can be rendered. Thank you, @nicolaskruchten.