import sys import matplotlib.pyplot as plt enc = 'utf-8' reload(sys) sys.setdefaultencoding(enc) plt.rcParams['font.family'] = 'Sazanami Gothic' # Read strings names = [] for line in open(file, 'r'): names.append(line.strip()) # Draw plt.bar(...()...) plt.title('name: {}'.format(names[0].decode(enc)))