How to improve the label placement in scatter plot

Another option using my library adjustText, written specially for this purpose (https://github.com/Phlya/adjustText).

from adjustText import adjust_text
np.random.seed(2016)

N = 50
scatter_data = np.random.rand(N, 3)
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.scatter(scatter_data[:, 0], scatter_data[:, 1],
           c=scatter_data[:, 2], s=scatter_data[:, 2] * 150)
labels = ['ano_{}'.format(i) for i in range(N)]
texts = []
for x, y, text in zip(scatter_data[:, 0], scatter_data[:, 1], labels):
    texts.append(ax.text(x, y, text))
plt.show()

np.random.seed(2016)

N = 50
scatter_data = np.random.rand(N, 3)
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.scatter(scatter_data[:, 0], scatter_data[:, 1],
           c=scatter_data[:, 2], s=scatter_data[:, 2] * 150)
labels = ['ano_{}'.format(i) for i in range(N)]
texts = []
for x, y, text in zip(scatter_data[:, 0], scatter_data[:, 1], labels):
    texts.append(ax.text(x, y, text))
adjust_text(texts, force_text=0.05, arrowprops=dict(arrowstyle="-|>",
                                                    color="r", alpha=0.5))
plt.show()

It doesn’t repel from the bubbles, only from their centers and other texts.