Documentation Link

https://matplotlib.org/devdocs/users/explain/text/text_props.html

Problem

• The fontsize property mentions relative sizes ("e.g., 'smaller', 'x-large'"), but no full list of supported values or how they scale the default font size.
• Relatedly, I find it confusing that smaller/larger exist when they are the same value as small/large.

Suggested improvement

• Add a table or paragraph describing allowable relative font size strings and their scaling factor. They are defined here:

  matplotlib/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py

  Lines 55 to 66 in 1c3e043

  	font_scalings = {
  	'xx-small': 0.579,
  	'x-small': 0.694,
  	'small': 0.833,
  	'medium': 1.0,
  	'large': 1.200,
  	'x-large': 1.440,
  	'xx-large': 1.728,
  	'larger': 1.2,
  	'smaller': 0.833,
  	None: 1.0,
  	}

• Deprecate smaller/larger in favor of small/large. It seems that they are a relic from pre-2007 when they were the only two supported relative sizes (see ac5f198).