How to do it...

Let's see how simple it is to work in interactive mode:

1. Set the screen output as the backend:

%matplotlib inline

2. Import the matplotlib and pyplot libraries. It is common practice in Python to import libraries with crisp synonyms. Note plt is the synonym for the matplotlib.pyplot package:

import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

3. Set the interactive mode to ON:

plt.ion()

4. Check the status of interactive mode:

mpl.is_interactive()

5. You should get the output as True.
6. Plot a line graph:

plt.plot([1.5, 3.0])

You should see the following graph as the output:

7. Now add the axis labels and a title to the graph with the help of the following code:

# Add labels and title
plt.title("Interactive Plot") #Prints the title on top of graph
plt.xlabel("X-axis")         # Prints X axis label as "X-axis"
plt.ylabel("Y-axis")         # Prints Y axis label as "Y-axis"

After executing the preceding three statements, your graph should look as follows: