NAME

Term::GnuplotTerminals - documentation of gnuplot output devices

aed767

The aed512 and aed767 terminal drivers support AED graphics terminals. The two drivers differ only in their horizontal ranges, which are 512 and 768 pixels, respectively. Their vertical range is 575 pixels. There are no options for these drivers.

aifm

Several options may be set in aifm---the Adobe Illustrator 3.0+ driver.

Syntax:

set terminal aifm {<color>} {"<fontname>"} {<fontsize>}

<color> is either color or monochrome; "<fontname>" is the name of a valid PostScript font; <fontsize> is the size of the font in PostScript points, before scaling by the set size command. Selecting default sets all options to their default values: monochrome, "Times-Roman", and 14pt.

Since AI does not really support multiple pages, multiple graphs will be drawn directly on top of one another. However, each graph will be grouped individually, making it easy to separate them inside AI (just pick them up and move them).

Examples:

set term aifm
set term aifm 22
set size 0.7,1.4; set term aifm color "Times-Roman" 14

amiga

The amiga terminal, for Commodore Amiga computers, allows the user to plot either to a screen (default), or, if Kickstart 3.0 or higher is installed, to a window on the current public screen. The font and its size can also be selected.

Syntax:

set terminal amiga {screen | window} {"<fontname>"} {<fontsize>}

The default font is 8-point "topaz".

The screen option uses a virtual screen, so it is possible that the graph will be larger than the screen.

apollo

The apollo terminal driver supports the Apollo Graphics Primitive Resource with rescaling after window resizing. It has no options.

If a fixed-size window is desired, the gpr terminal may be used instead.

atari ST (via AES)

The atari terminal has options to set the character size and the screen colors.

Syntax:

set terminal atari {<fontsize>} {<col0> <col1> ... <col15.}

The character size must appear if any colors are to be specified. Each of the (up to 16) colors is given as a three-digit hex number, where the digits represent RED, GREEN and BLUE (in that order). The range of 0--15 is scaled to whatever color range the screen actually has. On a normal ST screen, odd and even intensities are the same.

Examples:

set terminal atari 4    # use small (6x6) font
set terminal atari 6 0  # set monochrome screen to white on black
set terminal atari 13 0 fff f00 f0 f ff f0f
           # set first seven colors to black, white, green, blue,
           # cyan, purple, and yellow and use large font (8x16).

Additionally, if an environment variable GNUCOLORS exists, its contents are interpreted as an options string, but an explicit terminal option takes precedence.

atari ST (via VDI)

The vdi terminal is the same as the atari terminal, except that it sends output to the screen via the VDI and not into AES-Windows.

The vdi terminal has options to set the character size and the screen colors.

Syntax:

set terminal vdi {<fontsize>} {<col0> <col1> ... <col15.}

The character size must appear if any colors are to be specified. Each of the (up to 16) colors is given as a three-digit hex number, where the digits represent RED, GREEN and BLUE (in that order). The range of 0--15 is scaled to whatever color range the screen actually has. On a normal ST screen, odd and even intensities are the same.

Examples:

set terminal vdi 4    # use small (6x6) font
set terminal vdi 6 0  # set monochrome screen to white on black
set terminal vdi 13 0 fff f00 f0 f ff f0f
           # set first seven colors to black, white, green, blue,
           # cyan, purple, and yellow and use large font (8x16).

Additionally, if an environment variable GNUCOLORS exists, its contents are interpreted as an options string, but an explicit terminal option takes precedence.

be

gnuplot provides the be terminal type for use with X servers. This terminal type is set automatically at startup if the DISPLAY environment variable is set, if the TERM environment variable is set to xterm, or if the -display command line option is used.

Syntax:

set terminal be {reset} {<n>}

Multiple plot windows are supported: set terminal be <n> directs the output to plot window number n. If n>0, the terminal number will be appended to the window title and the icon will be labeled gplt <n>. The active window may distinguished by a change in cursor (from default to crosshair.)

Plot windows remain open even when the gnuplot driver is changed to a different device. A plot window can be closed by pressing the letter q while that window has input focus, or by choosing close from a window manager menu. All plot windows can be closed by specifying reset, which actually terminates the subprocess which maintains the windows (unless -persist was specified).

Plot windows will automatically be closed at the end of the session unless the -persist option was given.

The size or aspect ratio of a plot may be changed by resizing the gnuplot window.

Linewidths and pointsizes may be changed from within gnuplot with set linestyle.

For terminal type be, gnuplot accepts (when initialized) the standard X Toolkit options and resources such as geometry, font, and name from the command line arguments or a configuration file. See the X(1) man page (or its equivalent) for a description of such options.

A number of other gnuplot options are available for the be terminal. These may be specified either as command-line options when gnuplot is invoked or as resources in the configuration file "/.Xdefaults". They are set upon initialization and cannot be altered during a gnuplot session.

command-line_options

In addition to the X Toolkit options, the following options may be specified on the command line when starting gnuplot or as resources in your ".Xdefaults" file:

`-clear`   requests that the window be cleared momentarily before a
                       new plot is displayed.
`-gray`        requests grayscale rendering on grayscale or color displays.
                       (Grayscale displays receive monochrome rendering by default.)
`-mono`        forces monochrome rendering on color displays.
`-persist` plot windows survive after main gnuplot program exits
`-raise`   raise plot window after each plot
`-noraise` do not raise plot window after each plot
`-tvtwm`   requests that geometry specifications for position of the
                       window be made relative to the currently displayed portion
                       of the virtual root.

The options are shown above in their command-line syntax. When entered as resources in ".Xdefaults", they require a different syntax.

Example:

gnuplot*gray: on

gnuplot also provides a command line option (-pointsize <v>) and a resource, gnuplot*pointsize: <v>, to control the size of points plotted with the points plotting style. The value v is a real number (greater than 0 and less than or equal to ten) used as a scaling factor for point sizes. For example, -pointsize 2 uses points twice the default size, and -pointsize 0.5 uses points half the normal size.

monochrome_options

For monochrome displays, gnuplot does not honor foreground or background colors. The default is black-on-white. -rv or gnuplot*reverseVideo: on requests white-on-black.

color_resources

For color displays, gnuplot honors the following resources (shown here with their default values) or the greyscale resources. The values may be color names as listed in the BE rgb.txt file on your system, hexadecimal RGB color specifications (see BE documentation), or a color name followed by a comma and an intensity value from 0 to 1. For example, blue, 0.5 means a half intensity blue.

gnuplot*background:  white
gnuplot*textColor:   black
gnuplot*borderColor: black
gnuplot*axisColor:   black
gnuplot*line1Color:  red
gnuplot*line2Color:  green
gnuplot*line3Color:  blue
gnuplot*line4Color:  magenta
gnuplot*line5Color:  cyan
gnuplot*line6Color:  sienna
gnuplot*line7Color:  orange
gnuplot*line8Color:  coral

The command-line syntax for these is, for example,

Example:

gnuplot -background coral

grayscale_resources

When -gray is selected, gnuplot honors the following resources for grayscale or color displays (shown here with their default values). Note that the default background is black.

gnuplot*background: black
gnuplot*textGray:   white
gnuplot*borderGray: gray50
gnuplot*axisGray:   gray50
gnuplot*line1Gray:  gray100
gnuplot*line2Gray:  gray60
gnuplot*line3Gray:  gray80
gnuplot*line4Gray:  gray40
gnuplot*line5Gray:  gray90
gnuplot*line6Gray:  gray50
gnuplot*line7Gray:  gray70
gnuplot*line8Gray:  gray30

line_resources

gnuplot honors the following resources for setting the width (in pixels) of plot lines (shown here with their default values.) 0 or 1 means a minimal width line of 1 pixel width. A value of 2 or 3 may improve the appearance of some plots.

gnuplot*borderWidth: 2
gnuplot*axisWidth:   0
gnuplot*line1Width:  0
gnuplot*line2Width:  0
gnuplot*line3Width:  0
gnuplot*line4Width:  0
gnuplot*line5Width:  0
gnuplot*line6Width:  0
gnuplot*line7Width:  0
gnuplot*line8Width:  0

gnuplot honors the following resources for setting the dash style used for plotting lines. 0 means a solid line. A two-digit number jk (j and k are >= 1 and <= 9) means a dashed line with a repeated pattern of j pixels on followed by k pixels off. For example, '16' is a "dotted" line with one pixel on followed by six pixels off. More elaborate on/off patterns can be specified with a four-digit value. For example, '4441' is four on, four off, four on, one off. The default values shown below are for monochrome displays or monochrome rendering on color or grayscale displays. For color displays, the default for each is 0 (solid line) except for axisDashes which defaults to a '16' dotted line.

gnuplot*borderDashes:   0
gnuplot*axisDashes:        16
gnuplot*line1Dashes:        0
gnuplot*line2Dashes:   42
gnuplot*line3Dashes:   13
gnuplot*line4Dashes:   44
gnuplot*line5Dashes:   15
gnuplot*line6Dashes: 4441
gnuplot*line7Dashes:   42
gnuplot*line8Dashes:   13

cgi

The cgi and hcgi terminal drivers support SCO CGI drivers. hcgi is for printers; the environment variable CGIPRNT must be set. cgi may be used for either a display or hardcopy; if the environment variable CGIDISP is set, then that display is used. Otherwise CGIPRNT is used.

These terminals have no options.

cgm

The cgm terminal generates a Computer Graphics Metafile, Version 1. This file format is a subset of the ANSI X3.122-1986 standard entitled "Computer Graphics - Metafile for the Storage and Transfer of Picture Description Information". Several options may be set in cgm.

Syntax:

set terminal cgm {<mode>} {<color>} {<rotation>} {solid | dashed}
                 {width <plot_width>} {linewidth <line_width>}
                 {"<font>"} {<fontsize>}
                 {<color0> <color1> <color2> ...}

where <mode> is landscape, portrait, or default; <color> is either color or monochrome; <rotation> is either rotate or norotate; solid draws all curves with solid lines, overriding any dashed patterns; <plot_width> is the assumed width of the plot in points; <line_width> is the line width in points (default 1); <font> is the name of a font; and <fontsize> is the size of the font in points (default 12).

By default, cgm uses rotated text for the Y axis label.

The first six options can be in any order. Selecting default sets all options to their default values.

Each color must be of the form 'xrrggbb', where x is the literal character 'x' and 'rrggbb' are the red, green and blue components in hex. For example, 'x00ff00' is green. The background color is set first, then the plotting colors.

Examples:

set terminal cgm landscape color rotate dashed width 432 \
               linewidth 1  'Helvetica Bold' 12       # defaults
set terminal cgm 14 linewidth 2  14  # wider lines & larger font
set terminal cgm portrait "Times Italic" 12
set terminal cgm color solid      # no pesky dashes!

font

The first part of a Computer Graphics Metafile, the metafile description, includes a font table. In the picture body, a font is designated by an index into this table. By default, this terminal generates a table with the following 16 fonts, plus six more with italic replaced by oblique, or vice-versa (since at least the Microsoft Office and Corel Draw CGM import filters treat italic and oblique as equivalent):

Helvetica
Helvetica Bold
Helvetica Oblique
Helvetica Bold Oblique
Times Roman
Times Bold
Times Italic
Times Bold Italic
Courier
Courier Bold
Courier Oblique
Courier Bold Oblique
Symbol
Hershey/Cartographic_Roman
Hershey/Cartographic_Greek
Hershey/Simplex_Roman
Hershey/Simplex_Greek
Hershey/Simplex_Script
Hershey/Complex_Roman
Hershey/Complex_Greek
Hershey/Complex_Script
Hershey/Complex_Italic
Hershey/Complex_Cyrillic
Hershey/Duplex_Roman
Hershey/Triplex_Roman
Hershey/Triplex_Italic
Hershey/Gothic_German
Hershey/Gothic_English
Hershey/Gothic_Italian
Hershey/Symbol_Set_1
Hershey/Symbol_Set_2
Hershey/Symbol_Math
ZapfDingbats
Script
15

The first thirteen of these fonts are required for WebCGM. The Microsoft Office CGM import filter implements the 13 standard fonts listed above, and also 'ZapfDingbats' and 'Script'. However, the script font may only be accessed under the name '15'. For more on Microsoft import filter font substitutions, check its help file which you may find here:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Cgmimp32.hlp

and/or its configuration file, which you may find here:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Grphflt\Cgmimp32.cfg

In the set term command, you may specify a font name which does not appear in the default font table. In that case, a new font table is constructed with the specified font as its first entry. You must ensure that the spelling, capitalization, and spacing of the name are appropriate for the application that will read the CGM file. (Gnuplot and any MIL-D-28003A compliant application ignore case in font names.) If you need to add several new fonts, use several set term commands.

Example:

set terminal cgm 'Old English'
set terminal cgm 'Tengwar'
set terminal cgm 'Arabic'
set output 'myfile.cgm'
plot ...
set output

You cannot introduce a new font in a set label command.

fontsize

Fonts are scaled assuming the page is 6 inches wide. If the size command is used to change the aspect ratio of the page or the CGM file is converted to a different width, the resulting font sizes will be scaled up or down accordingly. To change the assumed width, use the width option.

linewidth

The linewidth option sets the width of lines in pt. The default width is 1 pt. Scaling is affected by the actual width of the page, as discussed under the fontsize and width options

rotate

The norotate option may be used to disable text rotation. For example, the CGM input filter for Word for Windows 6.0c can accept rotated text, but the DRAW editor within Word cannot. If you edit a graph (for example, to label a curve), all rotated text is restored to horizontal. The Y axis label will then extend beyond the clip boundary. With norotate, the Y axis label starts in a less attractive location, but the page can be edited without damage. The rotate option confirms the default behavior.

solid

The solid option may be used to disable dashed line styles in the plots. This is useful when color is enabled and the dashing of the lines detracts from the appearance of the plot. The dashed option confirms the default behavior, which gives a different dash pattern to each curve.

size

Default size of a CGM plot is 32599 units wide and 23457 units high for landscape, or 23457 units wide by 32599 units high for portrait.

width

All distances in the CGM file are in abstract units. The application that reads the file determines the size of the final plot. By default, the width of the final plot is assumed to be 6 inches (15.24 cm). This distance is used to calculate the correct font size, and may be changed with the width option. The keyword should be followed by the width in points. (Here, a point is 1/72 inch, as in PostScript. This unit is known as a "big point" in TeX.) Gnuplot expressions can be used to convert from other units.

Example:

set terminal cgm width 432            # default
set terminal cgm width 6*72           # same as above
set terminal cgm width 10/2.54*72     # 10 cm wide

nofontlist

The default font table includes the fonts recommended for WebCGM, which are compatible with the Computer Graphics Metafile input filter for Microsoft Office and Corel Draw. Another application might use different fonts and/or different font names, which may not be documented. As a workaround, the nofontlist option deletes the font table from the CGM file. In this case, the reading application should use a default table. Gnuplot will still use its own default font table to select font indices. Thus, 'Helvetica' will give you an index of 1, which should get you the first entry in your application's default font table. 'Helvetica Bold' will give you its second entry, etc.

The former winword6 option is now a deprecated synonym for nofontlist. The problems involving the color and font tables that the winword6 option was intended to work around turned out to be gnuplot bugs which have now been fixed.

corel

The corel terminal driver supports CorelDraw.

Syntax:

set terminal corel {  default
                    | {monochrome | color
                         {"<font>" {<fontsize> 
                            {<xsize> <ysize> {<linewidth> }}}}}

where the fontsize and linewidth are specified in points and the sizes in inches. The defaults are monochrome, "SwitzerlandLight", 22, 8.2, 10 and 1.2.

debug

This terminal is provided to allow for the debugging of gnuplot. It is likely to be of use only for users who are modifying the source code.

svga

The svga terminal driver supports PCs with SVGA graphics. It can only be be used if it is compiled with DJGPP. Its only option is the font.

Syntax:

set terminal svga {"<fontname>"}

dumb

The dumb terminal driver has an optional size specification and trailing linefeed control.

Syntax:

set terminal dumb {[no]feed} {<xsize> <ysize>}

where <xsize> and <ysize> set the size of the dumb terminals. Default is 79 by 24. The last newline is printed only if feed is enabled.

Examples:

set term dumb nofeed
set term dumb 79 49 # VGA screen---why would anyone do that?

dxf

The dxf terminal driver creates pictures that can be imported into AutoCad (Release 10.x). It has no options of its own, but some features of its plots may be modified by other means. The default size is 120x80 AutoCad units, which can be changed by set size. dxf uses seven colors (white, red, yellow, green, cyan, blue and magenta), which can be changed only by modifying the source file. If a black-and-white plotting device is used, the colors are mapped to differing line thicknesses. See the description of the AutoCad print/plot command.

dxy800a

This terminal driver supports the Roland DXY800A plotter. It has no options.

eepic

The eepic terminal driver supports the extended LaTeX picture environment. It is an alternative to the latex driver.

The output of this terminal is intended for use with the "eepic.sty" macro package for LaTeX. To use it, you need "eepic.sty", "epic.sty" and a printer driver that supports the "tpic" \specials. If your printer driver doesn't support those \specials, "eepicemu.sty" will enable you to use some of them. dvips and dvipdfm do support the "tpic" \specials.

Syntax:

set terminal eepic {color, dashed, rotate, small, tiny, default, <fontsize>}

Options: You can give options in any order you wish. 'color' causes gnuplot to produce \color{...} commands so that the graphs are colored. Using this option, you must include \usepackage{color} in the preambel of your latex document. 'dashed' will allow dashed line types; without this option, only solid lines with varying thickness will be used. 'dashed' and 'color' are mutually exclusive; if 'color' is specified, then 'dashed' will be ignored 'rotate' will enable true rotated text (by 90 degrees). Otherwise, rotated text will be typeset with letters stacked above each other. If you use this option you must include \usepackage{graphicx} in the preamble. 'small' will use \scriptsize symbols as point markers (Probably does not work with TeX, only LaTeX2e). Default is to use the default math size. 'tiny' uses \scriptscriptstyle symbols. 'default' resets all options to their defaults = no color, no dashed lines, pseudo-rotated (stacked) text, large point symbols. <fontsize> is a number which specifies the font size inside the picture environment; the unit is pt (points), i.e., 10 pt equals approx. 3.5 mm. If fontsize is not specified, then all text inside the picture will be set in \footnotesize.

Notes: Remember to escape the # character (or other chars meaningful to (La-)TeX) by \\ (2 backslashes). It seems that dashed lines become solid lines when the vertices of a plot are too close. (I do not know if that is a general problem with the tpic specials, or if it is caused by a bug in eepic.sty or dvips/dvipdfm.) The default size of an eepic plot is 5x3 inches, which can be scaled by 'set size a,b' Points, among other things, are drawn using the LaTeX commands "\Diamond", "\Box", etc. These commands no longer belong to the LaTeX2e core; they are included in the latexsym package, which is part of the base distribution and thus part of any LaTeX implementation. Please do not forget to use this package. Instead of latexsym, you can also include the amssymb package. All drivers for LaTeX offer a special way of controlling text positioning: If any text string begins with '{', you also need to include a '}' at the end of the text, and the whole text will be centered both horizontally and vertically. If the text string begins with '[', you need to follow this with a position specification (up to two out of t,b,l,r), ']{', the text itself, and finally '}'. The text itself may be anything LaTeX can typeset as an LR-box. '\rule{}{}'s may help for best positioning.

Examples: set term eepic

output graphs as eepic macros inside a picture environment;
\input the resulting file in your LaTeX document.

set term eepic color tiny rotate 8

eepic macros with \color macros, \scripscriptsize point markers,
true rotated text, and all text set with 8pt.

About label positioning: Use gnuplot defaults (mostly sensible, but sometimes not really best):

set title '\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $'

Force centering both horizontally and vertically:

set label '{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $}' at 0,0

Specify own positioning (top here):

set xlabel '[t]{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $}'

The other label -- account for long ticlabels:

set ylabel '[r]{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $\rule{7mm}{0pt}'

emf

The emf terminal generates an Enhanced Metafile Format file. This file format is the metafile standard on MS Win32 Systems

Syntax:

set terminal emf {<color>} {solid | dashed}
                 {"<font>"} {<fontsize>}

<color> is either color or monochrome; solid draws all curves with solid lines, overriding any dashed patterns; <font> is the name of a font; and <fontsize> is the size of the font in points.

The first two options can be in any order. Selecting default sets all options to their default values.

Examples:

set terminal emf 'Times Roman Italic' 12
set terminal emf color solid    # no pesky dashes!

emxvga

The emxvga, emxvesa and vgal terminal drivers support PCs with SVGA, vesa SVGA and VGA graphics boards, respectively. They are intended to be compiled with "emx-gcc" under either DOS or OS/2. They also need VESA and SVGAKIT maintained by Johannes Martin (JMARTIN@GOOFY.ZDV.UNI-MAINZ.DE) with additions by David J. Liu (liu@phri.nyu.edu).

Syntax:

set terminal emxvga
set terminal emxvesa {vesa-mode}
set terminal vgal

The only option is the vesa mode for emxvesa, which defaults to G640x480x256.

epslatex

The epslatex driver generates output for further processing by LaTeX.

Syntax:

set terminal epslatex {default}
                        {color | monochrome} {solid | dashed}
                        {"<fontname>"} {<fontsize>}

default mode sets all options to their defaults: monochrome, dashed, "default" and 11pt. Default size of a plot is 5 inches wide and 3 inches high.

solid draws all plots with solid lines, overriding any dashed patterns; "<fontname"> is the name of font; and <fontsize> is the size of the font in PostScript points. Font selection isn't supported yet. Font size selection is supported only for the calculation of proper spacing. The actual LaTeX font at the point of inclusion is taken, so use LaTeX commands for changing fonts. If you use e.g. 12pt as font size for your LaTeX documents, use '"default" 12' as options.

All drivers for LaTeX offer a special way of controlling text positioning: (a) If any text string begins with '{', you also need to include a '}' at the end of the text, and the whole text will be centered both horizontally and vertically by LaTeX. (b) If the text string begins with '[', you need to continue it with: a position specification (up to two out of t,b,l,r), ']{', the text itself, and finally, '}'. The text itself may be anything LaTeX can typeset as an LR-box. \rule{}{}'s may help for best positioning. See also the documentation for the pslatex terminal driver. To create multiline labels, use \shortstack, for example

set ylabel '[r]{\shortstack{first line \\ second line}}' 

The driver produces two different files, one for the LaTeX part and one for the eps part of the figure. The name of the LaTeX file is derived from the name of the eps file given on the set output command; it is determined by replacing the trailing .eps (actually just the final extent in the file name---and the option will be turned off if there is no extent) with .tex in the output file name. Remember to close the output file before leaving gnuplot. There is no LaTeX output if no output file is given! In your LaTeX documents use '\input{filename}' for inclusion of the figure. Thus .eps file is included by the command \includegraphics{...}, thus Include \usepackage{graphicx} in the preamble! Via 'epstopdf' (contained e.g. in the teTeX package, requires ghostscript) pdf files can made out of the eps files. If the graphics package is properly configured, the LaTeX files can also be processed by pdflatex without changes, and the pdf files are included instead of the eps files.

epson-180dpi

This driver supports a family of Epson printers and derivatives.

epson-180dpi and epson-60dpi are drivers for Epson LQ-style 24-pin printers with resolutions of 180 and 60 dots per inch, respectively.

epson-lx800 is a generic 9-pin driver appropriate for printers like the Epson LX-800, the Star NL-10 and NX-1000, the PROPRINTER, and so forth.

nec-cp6 is generix 24-pin driver that can be used for printers like the NEC CP6 and the Epson LQ-800.

The okidata driver supports the 9-pin OKIDATA 320/321 Standard printers.

The starc driver is for the Star Color Printer.

The tandy-60dpi driver is for the Tandy DMP-130 series of 9-pin, 60-dpi printers.

Only nec-cp6 has any options.

Syntax:

set terminal nec-cp6 {monochrome | colour | draft}

which defaults to monochrome.

With each of these drivers, a binary copy is required on a PC to print. Do not use print---use instead copy file /b lpt1:.

excl

The excl terminal driver supports Talaris printers such as the EXCL Laser printer and the 1590. It has no options.

hercules

These drivers supports PC monitors with autodetected graphics boards. They can be used only when compiled with Zortech C/C++. None have options.

fig

The fig terminal device generates output in the Fig graphics language.

Syntax:

set terminal fig {monochrome | color}
                 {landscape | portrait}
                 {small | big | size <xsize> <ysize>}
                 {metric | inches}
                 {pointsmax <max_points>}
                 {solid | dashed}
                 {fontsize <fsize>}
                 {textnormal | {textspecial texthidden textrigid}}
                 {thickness <units>}
                 {depth <layer>}
                 {version <number>}

monochrome and color determine whether the picture is black-and-white or color. small and big produce a 5x3 or 8x5 inch graph in the default landscape mode and 3x5 or 5x8 inches in portrait mode. size sets (overrides) the size of the drawing area to <xsize>*<ysize> in units of inches or centimeters depending on the metric or inches setting in effect. The latter settings is also used as default units for editing with "xfig".

pointsmax <max_points> sets the maximum number of points per polyline.

solid inhibits automatic usage of dashed lines when solid linestyles are used up, which otherwise occurs.

fontsize sets the size of the text font to <fsize> points. textnormal resets the text flags and selects postscript fonts, textspecial sets the text flags for LaTeX specials, texthidden sets the hidden flag and textrigid the rigid flag.

depth sets the default depth layer for all lines and text. The default depth is 10 to leave room for adding material with "xfig" on top of the plot.

version sets the format version of the generated fig output. Currently only versions 3.1 and 3.2 are supported.

thickness sets the default line thickness, which is 1 if not specified. Overriding the thickness can be achieved by adding a multiple of 100 to the to the linetype value for a plot command. In a similar way the depth of plot elements (with respect to the default depth) can be controlled by adding a multiple of 1000 to <linetype>. The depth is then <layer> + <linetype>/1000 and the thickness is (<linetype>%1000)/100 or, if that is zero, the default line thickness.

Additional point-plot symbols are also available with the fig driver. The symbols can be used through pointtype values % 100 above 50, with different fill intensities controlled by <pointtype> % 5 and outlines in black (for <pointtype> % 10 < 5) or in the current color. Available symbols are

50 - 59:  circles
60 - 69:  squares
70 - 79:  diamonds
80 - 89:  upwards triangles
90 - 99:  downwards triangles

The size of these symbols is linked to the font size. The depth of symbols is by default one less than the depth for lines to achieve nice error bars. If <pointtype> is above 1000, the depth is <layer> + <pointtype>/1000-1. If <pointtype>%1000 is above 100, the fill color is (<pointtype>%1000)/100-1.

Available fill colors are (from 1 to 9): black, blue, green, cyan, red, magenta, yellow, white and dark blue (in monochrome mode: black for 1 to 6 and white for 7 to 9).

See plot with for details of <linetype> and <pointtype>.

The big option is a substitute for the bfig terminal in earlier versions, which is no longer supported.

Examples:

set terminal fig monochrome small pointsmax 1000  # defaults

plot 'file.dat' with points linetype 102 pointtype 759

would produce circles with a blue outline of width 1 and yellow fill color.

plot 'file.dat' using 1:2:3 with err linetype 1 pointtype 554

would produce errorbars with black lines and circles filled red. These circles are one layer above the lines (at depth 9 by default).

To plot the error bars on top of the circles use

plot 'file.dat' using 1:2:3 with err linetype 1 pointtype 2554

png (NEW)

Syntax:

set terminal png 
       {{no}transparent} {{no}interlace}
       {tiny | small | medium | large | giant}
       {font <face> {<pointsize>}}
       {size <x>,<y>} {{no}crop}
       {<color0> <color1> <color2> ...}

PNG images are created using libgd, with optional support for TrueType fonts via libfreetype. Version 1.8 or greater of libgd is required.

transparent instructs the driver to generate transparent PNGs. The first color will be the transparent one. Default is notransparent.

interlace instructs the driver to generate interlaced PNGs. Default is nointerlace.

Five basic fonts are supported directly by the gd library. These are tiny (5x8 pixels), small (6x12 pixels), medium, (7x13 Bold), large (8x16) or giant (9x15 pixels). These fonts cannot be scaled or rotated (pure horizontal or vertical text only).

If gnuplot was built with support for TrueType fonts, they may be selected using the font <face {<pointsize>}> option. <face> is either the full pathname to a TrueType font file, or a font face name searched for using the GDFONTPATH environmental variable. TrueType fonts are fully scalable and may be rotated through any angle.

The size <x,y> is given in pixels---it defaults to 640x480. The number of pixels can be also modified by scaling with the set size command. crop trims blank space from the edges of the completed plot, resulting in a smaller final image size. Default is nocrop.

Each color must be of the form 'xrrggbb', where x is the literal character 'x' and 'rrggbb' are the red, green and blue components in hex. For example, 'x00ff00' is green. The background color is set first, then the border colors, then the X & Y axis colors, then the plotting colors. The maximum number of colors that can be set is 256.

Examples:

set terminal png medium size 640,480 \
                 xffffff x000000 x404040 \
                 xff0000 xffa500 x66cdaa xcdb5cd \
                 xadd8e6 x0000ff xdda0dd x9500d3    # defaults

which uses white for the non-transparent background, black for borders, gray for the axes, and red, orange, medium aquamarine, thistle 3, light blue, blue, plum and dark violet for eight plotting colors.

set terminal png font arial 14 size 800,600

which searches for a TrueType font with face name 'arial' in the directory specified by the environment variable GDFONTPATH and 14pt font size.

set terminal png transparent xffffff \
                 x000000 x202020 x404040 x606060 \
                 x808080 xA0A0A0 xC0C0C0 xE0E0E0 \

which uses white for the transparent background, black for borders, dark gray for axes, and a gray-scale for the six plotting colors.

ggi

The ggi driver can run on different targets as X or svgalib.

Syntax:

set terminal ggi [acceleration <integer>] [[mode] {mode}]

In X the window cannot be resized using window manager handles, but the mode can be given with the mode option, e.g.:

- V1024x768
- V800x600
- V640x480
- V320x200

Please refer to the ggi documentation for other modes. The 'mode' keyword is optional. It is recommended to select the target by environment variables as explained in the libggi manual page. To get DGA on X, you should for example

bash> export GGI_DISPLAY=DGA
csh>  setenv GGI_DISPLAY DGA

'acceleration' is only used for targets which report relative pointer motion events (e.g. DGA) and is a strictly positive integer multiplication factor for the relative distances. The default for acceleration is 7.

Examples:

set term ggi acc 10
set term ggi acc 1 mode V1024x768
set term ggi V1024x768

gif

The gif terminal driver generates output in GIF format. It uses Thomas Boutell's gd library, which is available from http://www.boutell.com/gd/ Support for GIF output was removed from the gd library beginning with version 1.6; newer versions support PNG output instead.

#ifdef PNG_FOR_GIF

>>> This copy of gnuplot was configured to produce PNG images <<< >>> instead of GIF images when 'set term gif' is selected. <<<

#endif

Syntax:

set terminal gif {transparent} {interlace}
                 {tiny | small | medium | large | giant}
                 {size <x>,<y>}
                 {<color0> <color1> <color2> ...}

transparent instructs the driver to generate transparent GIFs. The first color will be the transparent one.

interlace instructs the driver to generate interlaced GIFs.

The choice of fonts is tiny (5x8 pixels), small (6x12 pixels), medium (7x13 Bold), large (8x16) or giant (9x15 pixels)

The size <x,y> is given in pixels---it defaults to 640x480. The number of pixels can be also modified by scaling with the set size command.

Each color must be of the form 'xrrggbb', where x is the literal character 'x' and 'rrggbb' are the red, green and blue components in hex. For example, 'x00ff00' is green. The background color is set first, then the border colors, then the X & Y axis colors, then the plotting colors. The maximum number of colors that can be set is 256.

Examples:

set terminal gif small size 640,480 \
                 xffffff x000000 x404040 \
                 xff0000 xffa500 x66cdaa xcdb5cd \
                 xadd8e6 x0000ff xdda0dd x9500d3    # defaults

which uses white for the non-transparent background, black for borders, gray for the axes, and red, orange, medium aquamarine, thistle 3, light blue, blue, plum and dark violet for eight plotting colors.

set terminal gif transparent xffffff \
                 x000000 x202020 x404040 x606060 \
                 x808080 xA0A0A0 xC0C0C0 xE0E0E0 \

which uses white for the transparent background, black for borders, dark gray for axes, and a gray-scale for the six plotting colors.

The page size is 640x480 pixels. The gif driver can create either color or monochromatic output, but you have no control over which is produced.

The current version of the gif driver does not support animated GIFs.

Gnugraph(GNU plotutils)

The unixplot driver produces device-independent output in the GNU plot graphics language. The default size of the PostScript results generated by "plot2ps" is 5 x 3 inches; this can be increased up to about 8.25 x 8.25 by set size.

Syntax:

set terminal unixplot {"<fontname>"} {<fontsize>}
                      {type <pt>} {size "<size>"}

which defaults to 10-point "Courier".

For type, the following options are accepted: X, pnm, gif, ai, ps, cgm, fig, pcl5, hpgl, tek, and meta (default). The size option (default is a4) is passed straight through to plotutils, it's the user's responsibility to provide correct values. Details can be found in the plotutils documentation.

Examples:

set terminal unixplot type hpgl size "a4"
set terminal unixplot size "a4,xoffset=-5mm,yoffset=2.0cm" type pnm

There is a non-GNU version of the unixplot driver which cannot be compiled unless this version is left out.

gpic

The gpic terminal driver generates GPIC graphs in the Free Software Foundations's "groff" package. The default size is 5 x 3 inches. The only option is the origin, which defaults to (0,0).

Syntax:

set terminal gpic {<x> <y>}

where x and y are in inches.

A simple graph can be formatted using

groff -p -mpic -Tps file.pic > file.ps.

The output from pic can be pipe-lined into eqn, so it is possible to put complex functions in a graph with the set label and set {x/y}label commands. For instance,

set ylab '@space 0 int from 0 to x alpha ( t ) roman d t@'

will label the y axis with a nice integral if formatted with the command:

gpic filename.pic | geqn -d@@ -Tps | groff -m[macro-package] -Tps
    > filename.ps

Figures made this way can be scaled to fit into a document. The pic language is easy to understand, so the graphs can be edited by hand if need be. All co-ordinates in the pic-file produced by gnuplot are given as x+gnuplotx and y+gnuploty. By default x and y are given the value 0. If this line is removed with an editor in a number of files, one can put several graphs in one figure like this (default size is 5.0x3.0 inches):

.PS 8.0
x=0;y=3
copy "figa.pic"
x=5;y=3
copy "figb.pic"
x=0;y=0
copy "figc.pic"
x=5;y=0
copy "figd.pic"
.PE

This will produce an 8-inch-wide figure with four graphs in two rows on top of each other.

One can also achieve the same thing by the command

set terminal gpic x y

for example, using

.PS 6.0
copy "trig.pic"
.PE

gpr

The gpr terminal driver supports the Apollo Graphics Primitive Resource for a fixed-size window. It has no options.

If a variable window size is desired, use the apollo terminal instead.

grass

The grass terminal driver gives gnuplot capabilities to users of the GRASS geographic information system. Contact grassp-list@moon.cecer.army.mil for more information. Pages are written to the current frame of the GRASS Graphics Window. There are no options.

hp2623a

The hp2623a terminal driver supports the Hewlett Packard HP2623A. It has no options.

hp2648

The hp2648 terminal driver supports the Hewlett Packard HP2647 and HP2648. It has no options.

hp500c

The hp500c terminal driver supports the Hewlett Packard HP DeskJet 500c. It has options for resolution and compression.

Syntax:

set terminal hp500c {<res>} {<comp>}

where res can be 75, 100, 150 or 300 dots per inch and comp can be "rle", or "tiff". Any other inputs are replaced by the defaults, which are 75 dpi and no compression. Rasterization at the higher resolutions may require a large amount of memory.

hpgl

The hpgl driver produces HPGL output for devices like the HP7475A plotter. There are two options which can be set: the number of pens and eject, which tells the plotter to eject a page when done. The default is to use 6 pens and not to eject the page when done.

The international character sets ISO-8859-1 and CP850 are recognized via set encoding iso_8859_1 or set encoding cp850 (see set encoding for details).

Syntax:

set terminal hpgl {<number_of_pens>} {eject}

The selection

set terminal hpgl 8 eject

is equivalent to the previous hp7550 terminal, and the selection

set terminal hpgl 4

is equivalent to the previous hp7580b terminal.

The pcl5 driver supports plotters such as the Hewlett-Packard Designjet 750C, the Hewlett-Packard Laserjet III, and the Hewlett-Packard Laserjet IV. It actually uses HPGL-2, but there is a name conflict among the terminal devices. It has several options which must be specified in the order indicated below:

Syntax:

set terminal pcl5 {mode <mode>} {<plotsize>}
    {{color {<number_of_pens>}} | monochrome} {solid | dashed}
    {font <font>} {size <fontsize>} {pspoints | nopspoints}

<mode> is landscape or portrait. <plotsize> is the physical plotting size of the plot, which is one of the following: letter for standard (8 1/2" X 11") displays, legal for (8 1/2" X 14") displays, noextended for (36" X 48") displays (a letter size ratio) or, extended for (36" X 55") displays (almost a legal size ratio). color is for multi-pen (i.e. color) plots, and <number_of_pens> is the number of pens (i.e. colors) used in color plots. monochrome is for one (e.g. black) pen plots. solid draws all lines as solid lines, or 'dashed' will draw lines with different dashed and dotted line patterns. <font> is stick, univers, cg_times, zapf_dingbats, antique_olive, arial, courier, garamond_antigua, letter_gothic, cg_omega, albertus, times_new_roman, clarendon, coronet, marigold, truetype_symbols, or wingdings. <fontsize> is the font size in points. The point type selection can be the standard default set by specifying nopspoints, or the same set of point types found in the postscript terminal by specifying pspoints.

Note that built-in support of some of these options is printer device dependent. For instance, all the fonts are supposedly supported by the HP Laserjet IV, but only a few (e.g. univers, stick) may be supported by the HP Laserjet III and the Designjet 750C. Also, color obviously won't work on the the laserjets since they are monochrome devices.

Defaults: landscape, noextended, color (6 pens), solid, univers, 12 point,

and nopspoints.

With pcl5 international characters are handled by the printer; you just put the appropriate 8-bit character codes into the text strings. You don't need to bother with set encoding.

HPGL graphics can be imported by many software packages.

hpljii

The hpljii terminal driver supports the HP Laserjet Series II printer. The hpdj driver supports the HP DeskJet 500 printer. These drivers allow a choice of resolutions.

Syntax:

set terminal hpljii | hpdj {<res>}

where res may be 75, 100, 150 or 300 dots per inch; the default is 75. Rasterization at the higher resolutions may require a large amount of memory.

The hp500c terminal is similar to hpdj; hp500c additionally supports color and compression.

hppj

The hppj terminal driver supports the HP PaintJet and HP3630 printers. The only option is the choice of font.

Syntax:

set terminal hppj {FNT5X9 | FNT9X17 | FNT13X25}

with the middle-sized font (FNT9X17) being the default.

imagen

The imagen terminal driver supports Imagen laser printers. It is capable of placing multiple graphs on a single page.

Syntax:

set terminal imagen {<fontsize>} {portrait | landscape}
                    {[<horiz>,<vert>]}

where fontsize defaults to 12 points and the layout defaults to landscape. <horiz> and <vert> are the number of graphs in the horizontal and vertical directions; these default to unity.

Example:

set terminal imagen portrait [2,3]

puts six graphs on the page in three rows of two in portrait orientation.

iris4d

The iris4d terminal driver supports Silicon Graphics IRIS 4D computers. Its only option is 8- or 24-bit color depth. The default is 8.

Syntax:

set terminal iris4d {8 | 24}

The color depth is not really a choice -- the value appropriate for the hardware should be selected.

When using 24-bit mode, the colors can be directly specified via the file .gnuplot_iris4d that is searched in the current directory and then in the home directory specified by the HOME environment variable. This file holds RGB values for the background, border, labels and nine plotting colors, in that order. For example, here is a file containing the default colors:

85   85   85     Background   (dark gray)
0    0    0      Boundary     (black)
170  0    170    Labeling     (magenta)
85   255  255    Plot Color 1 (light cyan)
170  0    0      Plot Color 2 (red)
0    170  0      Plot Color 3 (green)
255  85   255    Plot Color 4 (light magenta)
255  255  85     Plot Color 5 (yellow)
255  85   85     Plot Color 6 (light red)
85   255  85     Plot Color 7 (light green)
0    170  170    Plot Color 8 (cyan)
170  170  0      Plot Color 9 (brown)

This file must have exactly 12 lines of RGB triples. No empty lines are allowed, and anything after the third number on a line is ignored.

kyo

The kyo and prescribe terminal drivers support the Kyocera laser printer. The only difference between the two is that kyo uses "Helvetica" whereas prescribe uses "Courier". There are no options.

latex

The latex and emtex drivers allow two options.

Syntax:

set terminal latex | emtex {courier | roman | default} {<fontsize>}

fontsize may be any size you specify. The default is for the plot to inherit its font setting from the embedding document.

Unless your driver is capable of building fonts at any size (e.g. dvips), stick to the standard 10, 11 and 12 point sizes.

METAFONT users beware: METAFONT does not like odd sizes.

All drivers for LaTeX offer a special way of controlling text positioning: If any text string begins with '{', you also need to include a '}' at the end of the text, and the whole text will be centered both horizontally and vertically. If the text string begins with '[', you need to follow this with a position specification (up to two out of t,b,l,r), ']{', the text itself, and finally '}'. The text itself may be anything LaTeX can typeset as an LR-box. '\rule{}{}'s may help for best positioning.

Points, among other things, are drawn using the LaTeX commands "\Diamond" and "\Box". These commands no longer belong to the LaTeX2e core; they are included in the latexsym package, which is part of the base distribution and thus part of any LaTeX implementation. Please do not forget to use this package.

Points are drawn with the LaTex commands \Diamond and \Box. These commands do no longer belong to the LaTeX2e core, but are included in the latexsym-package in the base distribution, and are hence part of all LaTeX implementations. Please do not forget to use this package.

Examples: About label positioning: Use gnuplot defaults (mostly sensible, but sometimes not really best):

set title '\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $'

Force centering both horizontally and vertically:

set label '{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $}' at 0,0

Specify own positioning (top here):

set xlabel '[t]{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $}'

The other label -- account for long ticlabels:

set ylabel '[r]{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $\rule{7mm}{0pt}'

linux

The linux driver has no additional options to specify. It looks at the environment variable GSVGAMODE for the default mode; if not set, it uses 1024x768x256 as default mode or, if that is not possible, 640x480x16 (standard VGA).

macintosh

Several options may be set in the 'macintosh' driver.

Syntax:

set terminal macintosh {singlewin | multiwin} {vertical | novertical}
                       {size <width>, <height> | default}

'singlewin' limits the output to a single window and is useful for animations. 'multiwin' allows multiple windows. 'vertical' is only valid under the gx option. With this option, rotated text

   be drawn vertically. novertical turns this option off.
size <width>, <height> overrides the graph size set in the preferences
   dialog until it is cleared with either 'set term mac size default'
   or 'set term mac default'.

'set term mac size default' sets the window size settings to those set in
   the preferences dialog.

'set term mac default' sets all options to their default values.
   Default values: nogx, multiwin, novertical.

If you generate graphs under the multiwin option and then switch to singlewin,
the next plot command will cause one more window to be created. This new
window will be reused as long as singlewin is in effect. If you switch back
to multiwin, generate some graphs, and then switch to singlewin again, the
orginal 'singlewin' window will be resused if it is still open. Otherwise
a new 'singlewin' window will be created. The 'singlewin' window is not numbered.

mf

The mf terminal driver creates an input file to the METAFONT program. Thus a figure may be used in the TeX document in the same way as is a character.

To use a picture in a document, the METAFONT program must be run with the output file from gnuplot as input. Thus, the user needs a basic knowledge of the font creating process and the procedure for including a new font in a document. However, if the METAFONT program is set up properly at the local site, an unexperienced user could perform the operation without much trouble.

The text support is based on a METAFONT character set. Currently the Computer Modern Roman font set is input, but the user is in principal free to choose whatever fonts he or she needs. The METAFONT source files for the chosen font must be available. Each character is stored in a separate picture variable in METAFONT. These variables may be manipulated (rotated, scaled etc.) when characters are needed. The drawback is the interpretation time in the METAFONT program. On some machines (i.e. PC) the limited amount of memory available may also cause problems if too many pictures are stored.

The mf terminal has no options.

METAFONT Instructions

- Set your terminal to METAFONT:

set terminal mf

- Select an output-file, e.g.:

set output "myfigures.mf"

- Create your pictures. Each picture will generate a separate character. Its default size will be 5*3 inches. You can change the size by saying set size 0.5,0.5 or whatever fraction of the default size you want to have.

- Quit gnuplot.

- Generate a TFM and GF file by running METAFONT on the output of gnuplot. Since the picture is quite large (5*3 in), you will have to use a version of METAFONT that has a value of at least 150000 for memmax. On Unix systems these are conventionally installed under the name bigmf. For the following assume that the command virmf stands for a big version of METAFONT. For example:

- Invoke METAFONT:

virmf '&plain'

- Select the output device: At the METAFONT prompt ('*') type:

\mode:=CanonCX;     % or whatever printer you use

- Optionally select a magnification:

mag:=1;             % or whatever you wish

- Input the gnuplot-file:

input myfigures.mf

On a typical Unix machine there will usually be a script called "mf" that executes virmf '&plain', so you probably can substitute mf for virmf &plain. This will generate two files: mfput.tfm and mfput.$$$gf (where $$$ indicates the resolution of your device). The above can be conveniently achieved by typing everything on the command line, e.g.: virmf '&plain' '\mode:=CanonCX; mag:=1; input myfigures.mf' In this case the output files will be named myfigures.tfm and myfigures.300gf.

- Generate a PK file from the GF file using gftopk:

gftopk myfigures.300gf myfigures.300pk

The name of the output file for gftopk depends on the DVI driver you use. Ask your local TeX administrator about the naming conventions. Next, either install the TFM and PK files in the appropriate directories, or set your environment variables properly. Usually this involves setting TEXFONTS to include the current directory and doing the same thing for the environment variable that your DVI driver uses (no standard name here...). This step is necessary so that TeX will find the font metric file and your DVI driver will find the PK file.

- To include your pictures in your document you have to tell TeX the font:

\font\gnufigs=myfigures

Each picture you made is stored in a single character. The first picture is character 0, the second is character 1, and so on... After doing the above step, you can use the pictures just like any other characters. Therefore, to place pictures 1 and 2 centered in your document, all you have to do is:

\centerline{\gnufigs\char0}
\centerline{\gnufigs\char1}

in plain TeX. For LaTeX you can, of course, use the picture environment and place the picture wherever you wish by using the \makebox and \put macros.

This conversion saves you a lot of time once you have generated the font; TeX handles the pictures as characters and uses minimal time to place them, and the documents you make change more often than the pictures do. It also saves a lot of TeX memory. One last advantage of using the METAFONT driver is that the DVI file really remains device independent, because no \special commands are used as in the eepic and tpic drivers.

mp

The `mp` driver produces output intended to be input to the Metapost program. Running Metapost on the file creates EPS files containing the plots. By default, Metapost passes all text through TeX. This has the advantage of allowing essentially any TeX symbols in titles and labels.

Syntax:

set term mp {color | colour | monochrome}
            {solid | dashed}
            {notex | tex | latex}
            {magnification <magsize>}
            {psnfss | psnfss-version7 | nopsnfss}
            {prologues <value>}
            {a4paper}
            {amstex}
            {"<fontname>"} {<fontsize>}

The option color causes lines to be drawn in color (on a printer or display that supports it), monochrome (or nothing) selects black lines. The option solid draws solid lines, while dashed (or nothing) selects lines with different patterns of dashes. If solid is selected but color is not, nearly all lines will be identical. This may occasionally be useful, so it is allowed.

The option notex bypasses TeX entirely, therefore no TeX code can be used in labels under this option. This is intended for use on old plot files or files that make frequent use of common characters like $ and % that require special handling in TeX.

The option tex sets the terminal to output its text for TeX to process.

The option latex sets the terminal to output its text for processing by LaTeX. This allows things like \frac for fractions which LaTeX knows about but TeX does not. Note that you must set the environment variable TEX to the name of your LaTeX executable (normally latex) if you use this option or use mpost --tex=<name of LaTeX executable ...>. Otherwise metapost will try and use TeX to process the text and it won't work.

Changing font sizes in TeX has no effect on the size of mathematics, and there is no foolproof way to make such a change, except by globally setting a magnification factor. This is the purpose of the magnification option. It must be followed by a scaling factor. All text (NOT the graphs) will be scaled by this factor. Use this if you have math that you want at some size other than the default 10pt. Unfortunately, all math will be the same size, but see the discussion below on editing the MP output. mag will also work under notex but there seems no point in using it as the font size option (below) works as well.

The option psnfss uses postscript fonts in combination with LaTeX. Since this option only makes sense, if LaTeX is being used, the latex option is selected automatically. This option includes the following packages for LaTeX: inputenc(latin1), fontenc(T1), mathptmx, helvet(scaled=09.2), courier, latexsym and textcomp.

The option psnfss-version7 uses also postscript fonts in LaTeX (option latex is also automatically selected), but uses the following packages with LaTeX: inputenc(latin1), fontenc(T1), times, mathptmx, helvet and courier.

The option nopsnfss is the default and uses the standard font (cmr10 if not otherwise specified).

The option prologues takes a value as an additional argument and adds the line prologues:=<value> to the metapost file. If a value of 2 is specified metapost uses postscript fonts to generate the eps-file, so that the result can be viewed using e.g. ghostscript. Normally the output of metapost uses TeX fonts and therefore has to be included in a (La)TeX file before you can look at it.

The option noprologues is the default. No additional line specifying the prologue will be added.

The option a4paper adds a [a4paper] to the documentclass. Normally letter paper is used (default). Since this option is only used in case of LaTeX, the latex option is selected automatically.

The option amstex automatically selects the latex option and includes the following LaTeX packages: amsfonts, amsmath(intlimits). By default these packages are not included.

A name in quotes selects the font that will be used when no explicit font is given in a set label or set title. A name recognized by TeX (a TFM file exists) must be used. The default is "cmr10" unless notex is selected, then it is "pcrr8r" (Courier). Even under notex, a TFM file is needed by Metapost. The file pcrr8r.tfm is the name given to Courier in LaTeX's psnfss package. If you change the font from the notex default, choose a font that matches the ASCII encoding at least in the range 32-126. cmtt10 almost works, but it has a nonblank character in position 32 (space).

The size can be any number between 5.0 and 99.99. If it is omitted, 10.0 is used. It is advisable to use magstep sizes: 10 times an integer or half-integer power of 1.2, rounded to two decimals, because those are the most available sizes of fonts in TeX systems.

All the options are optional. If font information is given, it must be at the end, with size (if present) last. The size is needed to select a size for the font, even if the font name includes size information. For example, set term mp "cmtt12" selects cmtt12 shrunk to the default size 10. This is probably not what you want or you would have used cmtt10.

The following common ascii characters need special treatment in TeX:

$, &, #, %, _;  |, <, >;  ^, ~,  \, {, and }

The five characters $, #, &, _, and % can simply be escaped, e.g., \$. The three characters <, >, and | can be wrapped in math mode, e.g., $<$. The remainder require some TeX work-arounds. Any good book on TeX will give some guidance.

If you type your labels inside double quotes, backslashes in TeX code need to be escaped (doubled). Using single quotes will avoid having to do this, but then you cannot use \n for line breaks. As of this writing, version 3.7 of gnuplot processes titles given in a plot command differently than in other places, and backslashes in TeX commands need to be doubled regardless of the style of quotes.

Metapost pictures are typically used in TeX documents. Metapost deals with fonts pretty much the same way TeX does, which is different from most other document preparation programs. If the picture is included in a LaTeX document using the graphics package, or in a plainTeX document via epsf.tex, and then converted to PostScript with dvips (or other dvi-to-ps converter), the text in the plot will usually be handled correctly. However, the text may not appear if you send the Metapost output as-is to a PostScript interpreter.

Metapost Instructions

- Set your terminal to Metapost, e.g.:

set terminal mp mono "cmtt12" 12

- Select an output-file, e.g.:

set output "figure.mp"

- Create your pictures. Each plot (or multiplot group) will generate a separate Metapost beginfig...endfig group. Its default size will be 5 by 3 inches. You can change the size by saying set size 0.5,0.5 or whatever fraction of the default size you want to have.

- Quit gnuplot.

- Generate EPS files by running Metapost on the output of gnuplot:

mpost figure.mp  OR  mp figure.mp

The name of the Metapost program depends on the system, typically mpost for a Unix machine and mp on many others. Metapost will generate one EPS file for each picture.

- To include your pictures in your document you can use the graphics package in LaTeX or epsf.tex in plainTeX:

\usepackage{graphics} % LaTeX
\input epsf.tex       % plainTeX

If you use a driver other than dvips for converting TeX DVI output to PS, you may need to add the following line in your LaTeX document:

\DeclareGraphicsRule{*}{eps}{*}{}

Each picture you made is in a separate file. The first picture is in, e.g., figure.0, the second in figure.1, and so on.... To place the third picture in your document, for example, all you have to do is:

\includegraphics{figure.2} % LaTeX
\epsfbox{figure.2}         % plainTeX

The advantage, if any, of the mp terminal over a postscript terminal is editable output. Considerable effort went into making this output as clean as possible. For those knowledgeable in the Metapost language, the default line types and colors can be changed by editing the arrays lt[] and col[]. The choice of solid vs dashed lines, and color vs black lines can be change by changing the values assigned to the booleans dashedlines and colorlines. If the default tex option was in effect, global changes to the text of labels can be achieved by editing the vebatimtex...etex block. In particular, a LaTeX preamble can be added if desired, and then LaTeX's built-in size changing commands can be used for maximum flexibility. Be sure to set the appropriate MP configuration variable to force Metapost to run LaTeX instead of plainTeX.

mgr

The mgr terminal driver supports the Mgr Window system. It has no options.

mif

The mif terminal driver produces Frame Maker MIF format version 3.00. It plots in MIF Frames with the size 15*10 cm, and plot primitives with the same pen will be grouped in the same MIF group. Plot primitives in a gnuplot page will be plotted in a MIF Frame, and several MIF Frames are collected in one large MIF Frame. The MIF font used for text is "Times".

Several options may be set in the MIF 3.00 driver.

Syntax:

set terminal mif {color | colour | monochrome} {polyline | vectors}
                 {help | ?}

colour plots lines with line types >= 0 in colour (MIF sep. 2--7) and monochrome plots all line types in black (MIF sep. 0). polyline plots curves as continuous curves and vectors plots curves as collections of vectors. help and ? print online help on standard error output---both print a short description of the usage; help also lists the options;

Examples:

set term mif colour polylines    # defaults
set term mif                     # defaults
set term mif vectors
set term mif help

mtos

The mtos terminal has no options. It sends data via a pipe to an external program called GPCLIENT. It runs under MULTITOS, Magic 3.x, MagicMAC. and MiNT. If you cannot find GPCLIENT, than mail to dirk@lstm.uni-erlangen.de.

next

Several options may be set in the next driver.

Syntax:

set terminal next {<mode>} {<type> } {<color>} {<dashed>}
           {"<fontname>"} {<fontsize>} title {"<newtitle>"}

where <mode> is default, which sets all options to their defaults; <type> is either new or old, where old invokes the old single window; <color> is either color or monochrome; <dashed> is either solid or dashed; "<fontname>" is the name of a valid PostScript font; <fontsize> is the size of the font in PostScript points; and <title> is the title for the GnuTerm window. Defaults are new, monochrome, dashed, "Helvetica", 14pt.

Examples:

set term next default
set term next 22
set term next color "Times-Roman" 14
set term next color "Helvetica" 12 title "MyPlot"
set term next old

Pointsizes may be changed with set linestyle.

Openstep (next)

Several options may be set in the openstep (next) driver.

Syntax:

set terminal next {<mode>} {<type> } {<color>} {<dashed>}
           {"<fontname>"} {<fontsize>} title {"<newtitle>"}

where <mode> is default, which sets all options to their defaults; <type> is either new or old, where old invokes the old single window; <color> is either color or monochrome; <dashed> is either solid or dashed; "<fontname>" is the name of a valid PostScript font; <fontsize> is the size of the font in PostScript points; and <title> is the title for the GnuTerm window. Defaults are new, monochrome, dashed, "Helvetica", 14pt.

Examples:

set term next default
set term next 22
set term next color "Times-Roman" 14
set term next color "Helvetica" 12 title "MyPlot"
set term next old

Pointsizes may be changed with set linestyle.

pbm

Several options may be set in the pbm terminal---the driver for PBMplus.

Syntax:

set terminal pbm {<fontsize>} {<mode>}

where <fontsize> is small, medium, or large and <mode> is monochrome, gray or color. The default plot size is 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels high; this may be changed by set size.

The output of the pbm driver depends upon <mode>: monochrome produces a portable bitmap (one bit per pixel), gray a portable graymap (three bits per pixel) and color a portable pixmap (color, four bits per pixel).

The output of this driver can be used with Jef Poskanzer's excellent PBMPLUS package, which provides programs to convert the above PBMPLUS formats to GIF, TIFF, MacPaint, Macintosh PICT, PCX, X11 bitmap and many others. PBMPLUS may be obtained from ftp.x.org. The relevant files have names that begin with "netpbm-1mar1994.p1"; they reside in /contrib/utilities. The package can probably also be obtained from one of the many sites that mirrors ftp.x.org.

Examples:

set terminal pbm small monochrome             # defaults
set size 2,2; set terminal pbm color medium

dospc

The dospc terminal driver supports PCs with arbitrary graphics boards, which will be automatically detected. It should be used only if you are not using the gcc or Zortec C/C++ compilers.

pdf

This terminal produces files in the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), useable for printing or display with tools like Acrobat Reader

Syntax:

set terminal pdf {fname "<font>"} {fsize <fontsize>}

where <font> is the name of the default font to use (default Helvetica) and <fontsize> is the font size (in points, default 12)

pm

The pm terminal driver provides an OS/2 Presentation Manager window in which the graph is plotted. The window is opened when the first graph is plotted. This window has its own online help as well as facilities for printing, copying to the clipboard and some line type and color adjustments. The multiplot option is supported.

Syntax:

set terminal pm {server {n}} {persist} {widelines} {enhanced} {"title"}

If persist is specified, each graph appears in its own window and all windows remain open after gnuplot exits. If server is specified, all graphs appear in the same window, which remains open when gnuplot exits. This option takes an optional numerical argument which specifies an instance of the server process. Thus multiple server windows can be in use at the same time.

If widelines is specified, all plots will be drawn with wide lines. If enhanced is specified, sub- and superscripts and multiple fonts are enabled using the same syntax as the enhanced postscript option (see set terminal postscript enhanced for details). Font names for the basic PostScript fonts may be abbreviated to single letters.

If title is specified, it will be used as the title of the plot window. It will also be used as the name of the server instance, and will override the optional numerical argument.

Linewidths may be changed with set linestyle.

png (OLD)

The png terminal driver supports Portable Network Graphics. This old version of the png driver requires the third-party libraries "libpng" and "zlib". There is a newer png driver, with many more features, that is preferred if you have libgd version 1.8 or newer.

Syntax:

set terminal png {small | medium | large}
                 {transparent|notransparent}
                 {picsize <xsize> <ysize>}
                 {monochrome | gray | color}
                 {<color0> <color1> <color2> ...}

transparent instructs the driver to generate transparent PNGs. The first color will be the transparent one.

The defaults are small (fontsize) and color. Default size of the output is 640*480 pixel. This can be changed by the option picsize.

Each <color> must be of the form 'xrrggbb', where x is the literal character 'x' and 'rrggbb' are the red, green and blue components in hex. For example, 'x00ff00' is green. The background color is set first, then the border color, then the X & Y axis color, then the plotting colors. The maximum number of colors that can be set is currently 99.

postscript

Several options may be set in the postscript driver.

Syntax:

set terminal postscript {<mode>} {enhanced | noenhanced}
                        {color | colour | monochrome}
                        {blacktext | colortext | colourtext}
                        {solid | dashed} {dashlength | dl <DL>}
                        {linewidth | lw <LW>}
                        {<duplexing>}
                        {rounded | butt}
                        {fontfile [add | delete] "<filename>"}
                        {palfuncparam <samples>{,<maxdeviation>}}
                        {"<fontname>"} {<fontsize>}

where <mode> is landscape, portrait, eps or default; enhanced activates the "enhanced PostScript" features (subscripts, superscripts and mixed fonts); color enables color; blacktext forces all text to be written in black even in color mode; solid draws all plots with solid lines, overriding any dashed patterns; dashlength or dl scales the length of the dashed-line segments by <DL> (which is a floating-point number greater than zero); linewidth or lw scales all linewidths by <LW>; <duplexing> is defaultplex, simplex or duplex ("duplexing" in PostScript is the ability of the printer to print on both sides of the same page---don't set this if your printer can't do it); rounded sets line caps and line joins to be rounded; butt is the default, butt caps and mitered joins; "<fontname"> is the name of a valid PostScript font; and <fontsize> is the size of the font in PostScript points. In addition to the standard postscript fonts, an oblique version of the Symbol font, useful for mathematics, is defined. It is called "Symbol-Oblique".

default mode sets all options to their defaults: landscape, monochrome, dashed, dl 1.0, lw 1.0, defaultplex, noenhanced, "Helvetica" and 14pt. Default size of a PostScript plot is 10 inches wide and 7 inches high.

palfuncparam is only available if compiled with pm3d support. It controls how set palette functions are encoded as gradients in the output. Analytic color component functions (set via set palette functions) are encoded as linear interpolated gradients in the postscript output: The color component functions are sampled at <samples> points and all points are removed from this gradient which can be removed without changing the resulting colors by more than <maxdeviation>. For almost every useful palette you may savely leave the defaults of <samples>=2000 and <maxdeviation>=0.003 untouched.

eps mode generates EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) output, which is just regular PostScript with some additional lines that allow the file to be imported into a variety of other applications. (The added lines are PostScript comment lines, so the file may still be printed by itself.) To get EPS output, use the eps mode and make only one plot per file. In eps mode the whole plot, including the fonts, is reduced to half of the default size.

Fonts listed by fontfile or fontfile add encapsulate the font definitions of the listed font from a postscript Type 1 or TrueType font file directly into the gnuplot output postscript file. Thus, the enclosed font can be used in labels, titles, etc. See the section postscript fontfile for more details. With fontfile delete a fontfile is deleted from the list of embedded files.

Examples:

set terminal postscript default       # old postscript
set terminal postscript enhanced      # old enhpost
set terminal postscript landscape 22  # old psbig
set terminal postscript eps 14        # old epsf1
set terminal postscript eps 22        # old epsf2
set size 0.7,1.4; set term post portrait color "Times-Roman" 14
set term post "VAGRoundedBT_Regular" 14 fontfile "bvrr8a.pfa"

Linewidths and pointsizes may be changed with set style line.

The postscript driver supports about 70 distinct pointtypes, selectable through the pointtype option on plot and set style line.

Several possibly useful files about gnuplot's PostScript are included in the /docs/psdoc subdirectory of the gnuplot distribution and at the distribution sites. These are "ps_symbols.gpi" (a gnuplot command file that, when executed, creates the file "ps_symbols.ps" which shows all the symbols available through the postscript terminal), "ps_guide.ps" (a PostScript file that contains a summary of the enhanced syntax and a page showing what the octal codes produce with text and symbol fonts), "ps_file.doc" (a text file that contains a discussion of the organization of a PostScript file written by gnuplot), and "ps_fontfile_doc.tex" (a LaTeX file which contains a short documentation concerning the encapsulation of LaTeX fonts with a glyph table of the math fonts).

A PostScript file is editable, so once gnuplot has created one, you are free to modify it to your heart's desire. See the editing postscript section for some hints.

enhanced postscript

Control      Examples        Explanation
 ^           a^x             superscript
 _           a_x             subscript
 @           @x or a@^b_c    phantom box (occupies no width)
 &           &{space}        inserts space of specified length
 ~           ~a{.8-}         overprints '-' on 'a', raised by .8
                             times the current fontsize

Braces can be used to place multiple-character text where a single character is expected (e.g., 2^{10}). To change the font and/or size, use the full form: {/[fontname][=fontsize | *fontscale] text}. Thus {/Symbol=20 G} is a 20-point GAMMA) and {/*0.75 K} is a K at three-quarters of whatever fontsize is currently in effect. (The '/' character MUST be the first character after the '{'.)

If the encoding vector has been changed by set encoding, the default encoding vector can be used instead by following the slash with a dash. This is unnecessary if you use the Symbol font, however---since /Symbol uses its own encoding vector, gnuplot will not apply any other encoding vector to it.

The phantom box is useful for a@^b_c to align superscripts and subscripts but does not work well for overwriting an accent on a letter. (To do the latter, it is much better to use set encoding iso_8859_1 to change to the ISO Latin-1 encoding vector, which contains a large variety of letters with accents or other diacritical marks.) Since the box is non-spacing, it is sensible to put the shorter of the subscript or superscript in the box (that is, after the @).

Space equal in length to a string can be inserted using the '&' character. Thus

'abc&{def}ghi'

would produce

'abc   ghi'.

The '~' character causes the next character or bracketed text to be overprinted by the following character or bracketed text. The second text will be horizontally centered on the first. Thus '~a/' will result in an 'a' with a slash through it. You can also shift the second text vertically by preceding the second text with a number, which will define the fraction of the current fontsize by which the text will be raised or lowered. In this case the number and text must be enclosed in brackets because more than one character is necessary. If the overprinted text begins with a number, put a space between the vertical offset and the text ('~{abc}{.5 000}'); otherwise no space is needed ('~{abc}{.5---}'). You can change the font for one or both strings ('~a{.5 /*.2 o}'---an 'a' with a one-fifth-size 'o' on top---and the space between the number and the slash is necessary), but you can't change it after the beginning of the string. Neither can you use any other special syntax within either string. You can, of course, use control characters by escaping them (see below), such as '~a{\^}'

You can access special symbols numerically by specifying \character-code (in octal), e.g., {/Symbol \245} is the symbol for infinity.

You can escape control characters using \, e.g., \\, \{, and so on.

But be aware that strings in double-quotes are parsed differently than those enclosed in single-quotes. The major difference is that backslashes may need to be doubled when in double-quoted strings.

Examples (these are hard to describe in words---try them!):

set xlabel 'Time (10^6 {/Symbol m}s)'
set title '{/Symbol=18 \362@_{/=9.6 0}^{/=12 x}} \
           {/Helvetica e^{-{/Symbol m}^2/2} d}{/Symbol m}'

The file "ps_guide.ps" in the /docs/psdoc subdirectory of the gnuplot source distribution contains more examples of the enhanced syntax.

editing postscript

The PostScript language is a very complex language---far too complex to describe in any detail in this document. Nevertheless there are some things in a PostScript file written by gnuplot that can be changed without risk of introducing fatal errors into the file.

For example, the PostScript statement "/Color true def" (written into the file in response to the command set terminal postscript color), may be altered in an obvious way to generate a black-and-white version of a plot. Similarly line colors, text colors, line weights and symbol sizes can also be altered in straight-forward ways. Text (titles and labels) can be edited to correct misspellings or to change fonts. Anything can be repositioned, and of course anything can be added or deleted, but modifications such as these may require deeper knowledge of the PostScript language.

The organization of a PostScript file written by gnuplot is discussed in the text file "ps_file.doc" in the docs/ps subdirectory of the gnuplot source distribution.

postscript fontfile

The fontfile or fontfile add option takes one file name as argument and encapsulates this file into the postscript output in order to make this font available for text elements (labels, tic marks, titles, etc.). The fontfile delete option also takes one file name as argument. It deletes this file name from the list of encapsulated files.

The postscript terminal understands some font file formats: Type 1 fonts in ASCII file format (extension ".pfa"), Type 1 fonts in binary file format (extension ".pfb"), and TrueType fonts (extension ".ttf"). Pfa files are understood directly, pfb and ttf files are converted on the fly if appropriate conversion tools are installed (see below). You have to specify the full filename with the extension. Each fontfile option takes exact one font file name. This option can be used multiple times in order to include more than one font file.

The font file is searched in the working directory and in all directories listed in the fontpath which is determined by set fontpath. In addition, the fontpath can be set using the environment variable GNUPLOT_FONTPATH. If this is not set a system dependent default search list is used. See set fontpath for more details.

For using the encapsulated font file you have to specify the font name (which normally is not the same as the file name). When embedding a font file by using the fontfile option in interactive mode, the font name is printed on the screen. E.g.

Font file 'p052004l.pfb' contains the font 'URWPalladioL-Bold'. Location:
/usr/lib/X11/fonts/URW/p052004l.pfb

When using pfa or pfb fonts, you can also find it out by looking into the font file. There is a line similar to "/FontName /URWPalladioL-Bold def". The middle string without the slash is the fontname, here "URWPalladioL-Bold". For TrueType fonts, this is not so easy since the font name is stored in a binary format. In addition, they often have spaces in the font names which is not supported by Type 1 fonts (in which a TrueType is converted on the fly). The font names are changed in order to eliminate the spaces in the fontnames. The easiest way to find out which font name is generated for use with Gnuplot, start Gnuplot in interactive mode and type in "set terminal postscript fontfile '<filename.ttf>'".

For converting font files to pfa format the conversion tool has to read the font from a file and write it to standard output. For pfb files "pfbtops" is a tool which can do this. If this program is installed on your system the on the fly conversion should work. Just try to encapsulate a pfb file. If the compiled in program call does not work correctly you can specify how this program is called by defining the environment variable GNUPLOT_PFBTOPFA e.g. to "pfbtops %s". The %s will be repeated by the font file name and thus has to exist in the string. If you don't want to do the conversion on the fly but get a pfa file of the font you can use the tool "pfb2pfa" which is written in simple c and should compile with any c compiler. It is available from many ftp servers, e.g. ^ <a href="ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/fonts/utilities/ps2mf/">

ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/fonts/utilities/ps2mf/

^ </a> In fact, "pfbtopfa" and "pfb2ps" do the same job. "pfbtopfa" puts the resulting pfa code into a file, whereas "pfbtops" writes it to standard output.

TrueType fonts are converted into Type 1 pfa format, e.g. by using the tool "ttf2pt1" which is available from ^ <a href="http://ttf2pt1.sourceforge.net/">

http://ttf2pt1.sourceforge.net/

^ </a> If the build in conversion does not work, the conversion command can be changed by the environment variable GNUPLOT_TTFTOPFA. For usage with ttf2pt1 it may be set to "ttf2pt1 -a -e -W 0 %s - ". Here again, %s stands for the file name.

For special purposes you also can use a pipe (if available for your operating system). Therefore you start the file name definition with the character "<" and append a program call. This program has to write pfa data to standard output. Thus, a pfa file may be accessed by set fontfile "< cat garamond.pfa".

For example, including Type 1 font files can be used for including the postscript output in LaTeX documents. The "european computer modern" font (which is a variant of the "computer modern" font) is available in pfb format from any CTAN server, e.g. ^ <a href="ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/fonts/ps-type1/cm-super/">

ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/fonts/ps-type1/cm-super/

^ </a> For example, the file "sfrm1000.pfb" contains the normal upright fonts with serifs in the design size 10pt. The computer modern fonts, which are still necessary for mathematics, are available from ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/fonts/cm/ps-type1/bluesky. With these you can use any character available in TeX. However, the computer modern fonts have a strange encoding. (This is why you should not use cmr10.pfb for text, but sfrm1000.pfb instead.) The usage of TeX fonts is shown in one of the demos.

If the font "CMEX10" is embedded (file "cmex10.pfb") Gnuplot defines the additional font "CMEX10-Baseline". It is shifted vertically in order to fit better to the other glyphs (CMEX10 has its baseline at the top of the symbols).

The file "ps_fontfile_doc.tex" in the /docs/psdoc subdirectory of the gnuplot source distribution contains a table with glyphs of the TeX mathematics fonts.

pslatex and pstex

The pslatex and pstex drivers generate output for further processing by LaTeX and TeX, respectively. Figures generated by pstex can be included in any plain-based format (including LaTeX).

Syntax:

set terminal [pslatex | pstex] {<color>} {<dashed>} {<rotate>}
                               {auxfile} {<font_size>}

<color> is either color or monochrome. <dashed> is either dashed or solid. <rotate> is either rotate or norotate and determines if the y-axis label is rotated. <font_size> is the size (in pts) of the desired font.

If auxfile is specified, it directs the driver to put the PostScript commands into an auxiliary file instead of directly into the LaTeX file. This is useful if your pictures are large enough that dvips cannot handle them. The name of the auxiliary PostScript file is derived from the name of the TeX file given on the set output command; it is determined by replacing the trailing .tex (actually just the final extent in the file name) with .ps in the output file name, or, if the TeX file has no extension, .ps is appended. Remember to close the output file before leaving gnuplot. The .ps is included into the .tex file by a \special{psfile=...} command. If you would rather prefer \includegraphics{...}, then use the epslatex terminal.

All drivers for LaTeX offer a special way of controlling text positioning: (a) If any text string begins with '{', you also need to include a '}' at the end of the text, and the whole text will be centered both horizontally and vertically by LaTeX. (b) If the text string begins with '[', you need to continue it with: a position specification (up to two out of t,b,l,r), ']{', the text itself, and finally, '}'. The text itself may be anything LaTeX can typeset as an LR-box. \rule{}{}'s may help for best positioning.

Examples:

set term pslatex monochrome dashed rotate       # set to defaults

To write the PostScript commands into the file "foo.ps":

set term pslatex auxfile
set output "foo.tex"; plot ...; set output

About label positioning: Use gnuplot defaults (mostly sensible, but sometimes not really best):

set title '\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $'

Force centering both horizontally and vertically:

set label '{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $}' at 0,0

Specify own positioning (top here):

set xlabel '[t]{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $}'

The other label -- account for long ticlabels:

set ylabel '[r]{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $\rule{7mm}{0pt}'

Linewidths and pointsizes may be changed with set style line.

pstricks

The pstricks driver is intended for use with the "pstricks.sty" macro package for LaTeX. It is an alternative to the eepic and latex drivers. You need "pstricks.sty", and, of course, a printer that understands PostScript, or a converter such as Ghostscript.

PSTricks is available via anonymous ftp from the /pub directory at Princeton.EDU. This driver definitely does not come close to using the full capability of the PSTricks package.

Syntax:

set terminal pstricks {hacktext | nohacktext} {unit | nounit}

The first option invokes an ugly hack that gives nicer numbers; the second has to do with plot scaling. The defaults are hacktext and nounit.

qms

The qms terminal driver supports the QMS/QUIC Laser printer, the Talaris 1200 and others. It has no options.

regis

The regis terminal device generates output in the REGIS graphics language. It has the option of using 4 (the default) or 16 colors.

Syntax:

set terminal regis {4 | 16}

rgip

The rgip and uniplex terminal drivers support RGIP metafiles. They can combine several graphs on a single page, but only one page is allowed in a given output file.

Syntax:

set terminal rgip | uniplex {portrait | landscape}
                            {[<horiz>,<vert>]} {<fontsize>}

permissible values for the font size are in the range 1--8, with the default being 1. The default layout is landscape. Graphs are placed on the page in a horizxvert grid, which defaults to [1,1].

Example:

set terminal uniplex portrait [2,3]

puts six graphs on a page in three rows of two in portrait orientation.

sun

The sun terminal driver supports the SunView window system. It has no options.

svg

This terminal produces files in the W3C Scalable Vector Graphics format.

Syntax:

set terminal svg {size <x> <y>}
                 {fname "<font>"} {fsize <fontsize>}

where <x> and <y> are the size of the SVG plot to generate, <font> is the name of the default font to use (default Arial) and <fontsize> is the font size (in points, default 12)

tek410x

The tek410x terminal driver supports the 410x and 420x family of Tektronix terminals. It has no options.

table

Instead of producing a graph, the table terminal prints out the points on which a graph would be based, i.e., the results of processing the plot or splot command, in a multicolumn ASCII table of X Y {Z} R values. The character R takes on one of three values: "i" if the point is in the active range, "o" if it is out-of-range, or "u" if it is undefined. The data format is determined by the format of the axis labels (see set format), and the columns are separated by single spaces.

For those times when you want the numbers, you can display them on the screen or save them to a file. This can be useful if you want to generate contours and then save them for further use, perhaps for plotting with plot; see set contour for an example. The same method can be used to save interpolated data (see set samples and set dgrid3d).

tek40

This family of terminal drivers supports a variety of VT-like terminals. tek40xx supports Tektronix 4010 and others as well as most TEK emulators; vttek supports VT-like tek40xx terminal emulators; kc-tek40xx supports MS-DOS Kermit Tek4010 terminal emulators in color: km-tek40xx supports them in monochrome; selanar supports Selanar graphics; and bitgraph supports BBN Bitgraph terminals. None have any options.

texdraw

The texdraw terminal driver supports the LaTeX texdraw environment. It is intended for use with "texdraw.sty" and "texdraw.tex" in the texdraw package.

Points, among other things, are drawn using the LaTeX commands "\Diamond" and "\Box". These commands no longer belong to the LaTeX2e core; they are included in the latexsym package, which is part of the base distribution and thus part of any LaTeX implementation. Please do not forget to use this package.

It has no options.

tgif

Tgif is an X11-based drawing tool---it has nothing to do with GIF.

The tgif driver supports different pointsizes (with set pointsize), different label fonts and font sizes (e.g. set label "Hallo" at x,y font "Helvetica,34") and multiple graphs on the page. The proportions of the axes are not changed.

Syntax:

set terminal tgif {portrait | landscape} {<[x,y]>}
                  {solid | dashed}
                  {"<fontname>"} {<fontsize>}

where <[x,y]> specifies the number of graphs in the x and y directions on the page, "<fontname>" is the name of a valid PostScript font, and <fontsize> specifies the size of the PostScript font. Defaults are portrait, [1,1], dashed, "Helvetica", and 18.

The solid option is usually prefered if lines are colored, as they often are in the editor. Hardcopy will be black-and-white, so dashed should be chosen for that.

Multiplot is implemented in two different ways.

The first multiplot implementation is the standard gnuplot multiplot feature:

set terminal tgif
set output "file.obj"
set multiplot
set origin x01,y01
set size  xs,ys
plot ...
     ...
set origin x02,y02
plot ...
set nomultiplot

See set multiplot for further information.

The second version is the [x,y] option for the driver itself. The advantage of this implementation is that everything is scaled and placed automatically without the need for setting origins and sizes; the graphs keep their natural x/y proportions of 3/2 (or whatever is fixed by set size).

If both multiplot methods are selected, the standard method is chosen and a warning message is given.

Examples of single plots (or standard multiplot):

set terminal tgif                  # defaults
set terminal tgif "Times-Roman" 24
set terminal tgif landscape
set terminal tgif landscape solid

Examples using the built-in multiplot mechanism:

set terminal tgif portrait [2,4]  # portrait; 2 plots in the x-
                                  # and 4 in the y-direction
set terminal tgif [1,2]           # portrait; 1 plot in the x-
                                  # and 2 in the y-direction
set terminal tgif landscape [3,3] # landscape; 3 plots in both
                                  # directions

tkcanvas

This terminal driver generates Tk canvas widget commands based on Tcl/Tk (default) or Perl. To use it, rebuild gnuplot (after uncommenting or inserting the appropriate line in "term.h"), then

gnuplot> set term tkcanvas {perltk} {interactive}
gnuplot> set output 'plot.file'

After invoking "wish", execute the following sequence of Tcl/Tk commands:

% source plot.file
% canvas .c
% pack .c
% gnuplot .c

Or, for Perl/Tk use a program like this:

use Tk;
my $top = MainWindow->new;
my $c = $top->Canvas->pack;
my $gnuplot = do "plot.pl";
$gnuplot->($c);
MainLoop;

The code generated by gnuplot creates a procedure called "gnuplot" that takes the name of a canvas as its argument. When the procedure is called, it clears the canvas, finds the size of the canvas and draws the plot in it, scaled to fit.

For 2-dimensional plotting (plot) two additional procedures are defined: "gnuplot_plotarea" will return a list containing the borders of the plotting area "xleft, xright, ytop, ybot" in canvas screen coordinates, while the ranges of the two axes "x1min, x1max, y1min, y1max, x2min, x2max, y2min, y2max" in plot coordinates can be obtained calling "gnuplot_axisranges". If the "interactive" option is specified, mouse clicking on a line segment will print the coordinates of its midpoint to stdout. Advanced actions can happen instead if the user supplies a procedure named "user_gnuplot_coordinates", which takes the following arguments: "win id x1s y1s x2s y2s x1e y1e x2e y2e x1m y1m x2m y2m", the name of the canvas and the id of the line segment followed by the coordinates of its start and end point in the two possible axis ranges; the coordinates of the midpoint are only filled for logarithmic axes.

The current version of tkcanvas supports neither multiplot nor replot.

tpic

The tpic terminal driver supports the LaTeX picture environment with tpic \specials. It is an alternative to the latex and eepic terminal drivers. Options are the point size, line width, and dot-dash interval.

Syntax:

set terminal tpic <pointsize> <linewidth> <interval>

where pointsize and linewidth are integers in milli-inches and interval is a float in inches. If a non-positive value is specified, the default is chosen: pointsize = 40, linewidth = 6, interval = 0.1.

All drivers for LaTeX offer a special way of controlling text positioning: If any text string begins with '{', you also need to include a '}' at the end of the text, and the whole text will be centered both horizontally and vertically by LaTeX. --- If the text string begins with '[', you need to continue it with: a position specification (up to two out of t,b,l,r), ']{', the text itself, and finally, '}'. The text itself may be anything LaTeX can typeset as an LR-box. \rule{}{}'s may help for best positioning.

Examples: About label positioning: Use gnuplot defaults (mostly sensible, but sometimes not really best):

set title '\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $'

Force centering both horizontally and vertically:

set label '{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $}' at 0,0

Specify own positioning (top here):

set xlabel '[t]{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $}'

The other label -- account for long ticlabels:

set ylabel '[r]{\LaTeX\ -- $ \gamma $\rule{7mm}{0pt}'

unixpc

The unixpc terminal driver supports AT&T 3b1 and AT&T 7300 Unix PC. It has no options.

unixplot

The unixplot terminal driver generates output in the Unix "plot" graphics language. It has no options.

This terminal cannot be compiled if the GNU version of plot is to be used; in that case, use the gnugraph terminal instead.

vx384

The vx384 terminal driver supports the Vectrix 384 and Tandy color printers. It has no options.

vgagl

The vgagl driver is a fast linux console driver with full mouse and pm3d support. It looks at the environment variable SVGALIB_DEFAULT_MODE for the default mode; if not set, it uses a 256 color mode with the highest available resolution.

Syntax:

  set terminal vgagl \
               background [red] [[green] [blue]] \
               [uniform | interpolate] \

#if 0

               [dump "file"] \

#endif

               [mode]

The color mode can also be given with the mode option. Both Symbolic names as G1024x768x256 and integers are allowed. The background option takes either one or three integers in the range [0, 255]. If only one integers is supplied, it is taken as gray value for the background. If three integers are present, the background gets the corresponding color. The (mutually exclusive) options interpolate and uniform control if color interpolation is done while drawing triangles (on by default).

#if 0

A screen dump file can be specified with the dump "file" option. If this option is present, (i.e the dump file name is not empty) pressing the key KP_Delete will write the file. This action cannot and cannot be rebound. The file is written in raw ppm (P6) format. Note that this option is reset each time the set term command is issued.

#endif

To get high resolution modes, you will probably have to modify the configuration file of libvga, usually /etc/vga/libvga.conf. Using the VESA fb is a good choice, but this needs to be compiled in the kernel.

The vgagl driver uses the first *available* vga mode from the following list:

- the driver which was supplied when setting vgagl, e.g. `set term vgagl
  G1024x768x256` would first check, if the G1024x768x256 mode is available.
- the environment variable SVGALIB_DEFAULT_MODE
- G1024x768x256
- G800x600x256
- G640x480x256
- G320x200x256
- G1280x1024x256
- G1152x864x256
- G1360x768x256
- G1600x1200x256

VWS

The VWS terminal driver supports the VAX Windowing System. It has no options. It will sense the display type (monochrome, gray scale, or color.) All line styles are plotted as solid lines.

windows

Three options may be set in the windows terminal driver.

Syntax:

set terminal windows {<color>} {"<fontname>"} {<fontsize>}

where <color> is either color or monochrome, "<fontname"> is the name of a valid Windows font, and <fontsize> is the size of the font in points.

Other options may be set with the graph-menu, the initialization file, and set linestyle.

The Windows version normally terminates immediately as soon as the end of any files given as command line arguments is reached (i.e. in non-interactive mode). It will also not show the text-window at all, in this mode, only the plot. By giving the optional argument /noend or -noend, you can disable this behaviour.

graph-menu

The gnuplot graph window has the following options on a pop-up menu accessed by pressing the right mouse button or selecting Options from the system menu:

Bring to Top when checked brings the graph window to the top after every plot.

Color when checked enables color linestyles. When unchecked it forces monochrome linestyles.

Copy to Clipboard copies a bitmap and a Metafile picture.

Background... sets the window background color.

Choose Font... selects the font used in the graphics window.

Line Styles... allows customization of the line colors and styles.

Print... prints the graphics windows using a Windows printer driver and allows selection of the printer and scaling of the output. The output produced by Print is not as good as that from gnuplot's own printer drivers.

Update wgnuplot.ini saves the current window locations, window sizes, text window font, text window font size, graph window font, graph window font size, background color and linestyles to the initialization file WGNUPLOT.INI.

printing

In order of preference, graphs may be be printed in the following ways.

1. Use the gnuplot command set terminal to select a printer and set output to redirect output to a file.

2. Select the Print... command from the gnuplot graph window. An extra command screendump does this from the text window.

3. If set output "PRN" is used, output will go to a temporary file. When you exit from gnuplot or when you change the output with another set output command, a dialog box will appear for you to select a printer port. If you choose OK, the output will be printed on the selected port, passing unmodified through the print manager. It is possible to accidentally (or deliberately) send printer output meant for one printer to an incompatible printer.

text-menu

The gnuplot text window has the following options on a pop-up menu accessed by pressing the right mouse button or selecting Options from the system menu:

Copy to Clipboard copies marked text to the clipboard.

Paste copies text from the clipboard as if typed by the user.

Choose Font... selects the font used in the text window.

System Colors when selected makes the text window honor the System Colors set using the Control Panel. When unselected, text is black or blue on a white background.

Update wgnuplot.ini saves the current text window location, text window size, text window font and text window font size to the initialisation file WGNUPLOT.INI.

MENU BAR

If the menu file WGNUPLOT.MNU is found in the same directory as WGNUPLOT.EXE, then the menu specified in WGNUPLOT.MNU will be loaded. Menu commands:

[Menu] starts a new menu with the name on the following line.

[EndMenu] ends the current menu.

[--] inserts a horizontal menu separator.

[|] inserts a vertical menu separator.

[Button] puts the next macro on a push button instead of a menu.

Macros take two lines with the macro name (menu entry) on the first line and the macro on the second line. Leading spaces are ignored. Macro commands:

[INPUT] --- Input string with prompt terminated by [EOS] or {ENTER}

[EOS] --- End Of String terminator. Generates no output.

[OPEN] --- Get name of file to open from list box, with title of list box terminated by [EOS], followed by default filename terminated by [EOS] or {ENTER}. This uses COMMDLG.DLL from Windows 3.1.

[SAVE] --- Get name of file to save. Similar to [OPEN]

Macro character substitutions:

{ENTER} --- Carriage Return '\r'

{TAB} --- Tab '\011'

{ESC} --- Escape '\033'

{^A} --- '\001'

...

{^_} --- '\031'

Macros are limited to 256 characters after expansion.

wgnuplot.ini

Windows gnuplot will read some of its options from the [WGNUPLOT] section of WGNUPLOT.INI in the Windows directory. A sample WGNUPLOT.INI file:

[WGNUPLOT]
TextOrigin=0 0
TextSize=640 150
TextFont=Terminal,9
GraphOrigin=0 150
GraphSize=640 330
GraphFont=Arial,10
GraphColor=1
GraphToTop=1
GraphBackground=255 255 255
Border=0 0 0 0 0
Axis=192 192 192 2 2
Line1=0 0 255 0 0
Line2=0 255 0 0 1
Line3=255 0 0 0 2
Line4=255 0 255 0 3
Line5=0 0 128 0 4

The GraphFont entry specifies the font name and size in points. The five numbers given in the Border, Axis and Line entries are the Red intensity (0--255), Green intensity, Blue intensity, Color Linestyle and Mono Linestyle. Linestyles are 0=SOLID, 1=DASH, 2=DOT, 3=DASHDOT, 4=DASHDOTDOT. In the sample WGNUPLOT.INI file above, Line 2 is a green solid line in color mode, or a dashed line in monochrome mode. The default line width is 1 pixel. If Linestyle is negative, it specifies the width of a SOLID line in pixels. Line1 and any linestyle used with the points style must be SOLID with unit width.

windows3.0

Windows 3.1 is preferred, but WGNUPLOT will run under Windows 3.0 with the following restrictions: 1. COMMDLG.DLL and SHELL.DLL (available with Windows 3.1 or Borland C++ 3.1) must be in the windows directory.

2. WGNUPLOT.HLP produced by Borland C++ 3.1 is in Windows 3.1 format. You need to use the WINHELP.EXE supplied with Borland C++ 3.1.

3. It will not run in real mode due to lack of memory.

4. TrueType fonts are not available in the graph window.

5. Drag-drop does not work.

x11

gnuplot provides the x11 terminal type for use with X servers. This terminal type is set automatically at startup if the DISPLAY environment variable is set, if the TERM environment variable is set to xterm, or if the -display command line option is used.

Syntax:

#ifdef USE_X11_DRIVER /* HBB 20020214: Disabled X11_DRIVER */

  set terminal x11 [reset] [<n>] [driver <path>] [[no]persist] [[no]raise]

#else

  set terminal x11 [reset] [<n>] [[no]persist] [[no]raise] [font <fontspec>]

#endif    

Multiple plot windows are supported: set terminal x11 <n> directs the output to plot window number n. If n>0, the terminal number will be appended to the window title and the icon will be labeled gplt <n>. The active window may distinguished by a change in cursor (from default to crosshair.)

X11 fonts: A preferred default font may be specified to the x11 driver using

`set term x11 font "<fontspec>"`

The driver first queries the X-server for a font of the exact name given, for example set term x11 font "lucidasans-10". If this query fails, then the driver tries to interpret <fontspec> as "<font>,<size>,<slant>" and to construct a full X11 font name of the form

-*-<font>-*-<s>-*-*-<size>-*-*-*-*-*-<encoding>

<font> is the base name of the font (e.g. Times or Symbol) <size> is the point size (defaults to 12 if not specified) <s> is i if <slant>=="italic" o if <slant>=="oblique" r otherwise <encoding> is set based on the current character set (help set encoding) So set term x11 font "arial,15,italic" will be translated to -*-arial-*-i-*-*-15-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1 (assuming default encoding). The driver also recognizes some common PostScript font names and replaces them with possible X11 or TrueType equivalents. This same sequence is used to process font requests from set label.

Plot windows remain open even when the gnuplot driver is changed to a different device. A plot window can be closed by pressing the letter q while that window has input focus, or by choosing close from a window manager menu. All plot windows can be closed by specifying reset, which actually terminates the subprocess which maintains the windows (unless -persist was specified).

#ifdef USE_X11_DRIVER /* HBB 20020214: Disabled X11_DRIVER */

The option driver can be used to specify a driver different from the default driver gnuplot_x11. This options is thought mainly for developers who are working on new driver features. Note that changing the driver will shut down the connection to the previous driver. Example:

   gnuplot> set term x11 driver "gnuplot_x11_38a"

#endif

The gnuplot outboard driver, gnuplot_x11, is searched in a default place chosen when the program is compiled. You can override that by defining the environment variable GNUPLOT_DRIVER_DIR to point to a different location.

Plot windows will automatically be closed at the end of the session unless the -persist option was given.

The options persist and raise are unset by default, which means that the defaults (persist == no and raise == yes) or the command line options -persist / -raise or the Xresources are taken. If [no]persist or [no]raise are specified, they will override command line options and Xresources. Setting one of these options takes place immediately, so the behaviour of an already running driver can be modified.

The size or aspect ratio of a plot may be changed by resizing the gnuplot window.

Linewidths and pointsizes may be changed from within gnuplot with set linestyle.

For terminal type x11, gnuplot accepts (when initialized) the standard X Toolkit options and resources such as geometry, font, and name from the command line arguments or a configuration file. See the X(1) man page (or its equivalent) for a description of such options.

A number of other gnuplot options are available for the x11 terminal. These may be specified either as command-line options when gnuplot is invoked or as resources in the configuration file "/.Xdefaults". They are set upon initialization and cannot be altered during a gnuplot session. (except persist and raise)

command-line_options

In addition to the X Toolkit options, the following options may be specified on the command line when starting gnuplot or as resources in your ".Xdefaults" file (note that raise and persist can be overridden later by set term x11 [no]raise [no]persist):

`-clear`    requests that the window be cleared momentarily before a
            new plot is displayed.
`-gray`     requests grayscale rendering on grayscale or color displays.
            (Grayscale displays receive monochrome rendering by default.)
`-mono`     forces monochrome rendering on color displays.
`-persist`  plot windows survive after main gnuplot program exits
`-raise`    raise plot window after each plot
`-noraise`  do not raise plot window after each plot

#ifdef USE_MOUSE

`-noevents` do not process mouse and key events

#endif

`-tvtwm`    requests that geometry specifications for position of the
            window be made relative to the currently displayed portion
            of the virtual root.

The options are shown above in their command-line syntax. When entered as resources in ".Xdefaults", they require a different syntax.

Example:

gnuplot*gray: on

gnuplot also provides a command line option (-pointsize <v>) and a resource, gnuplot*pointsize: <v>, to control the size of points plotted with the points plotting style. The value v is a real number (greater than 0 and less than or equal to ten) used as a scaling factor for point sizes. For example, -pointsize 2 uses points twice the default size, and -pointsize 0.5 uses points half the normal size.

The -noevents switch disables all mouse and key event processing (except for q and <space> for closing the window). This is useful for programs which use the x11 driver independent of the gnuplot main program.

monochrome_options

For monochrome displays, gnuplot does not honor foreground or background colors. The default is black-on-white. -rv or gnuplot*reverseVideo: on requests white-on-black.

color_resources

For color displays, gnuplot honors the following resources (shown here with their default values) or the greyscale resources. The values may be color names as listed in the X11 rgb.txt file on your system, hexadecimal RGB color specifications (see X11 documentation), or a color name followed by a comma and an intensity value from 0 to 1. For example, blue, 0.5 means a half intensity blue.

gnuplot*background:  white
gnuplot*textColor:   black
gnuplot*borderColor: black
gnuplot*axisColor:   black
gnuplot*line1Color:  red
gnuplot*line2Color:  green
gnuplot*line3Color:  blue
gnuplot*line4Color:  magenta
gnuplot*line5Color:  cyan
gnuplot*line6Color:  sienna
gnuplot*line7Color:  orange
gnuplot*line8Color:  coral

The command-line syntax for these is, for example,

Example:

gnuplot -background coral

grayscale_resources

When -gray is selected, gnuplot honors the following resources for grayscale or color displays (shown here with their default values). Note that the default background is black.

gnuplot*background: black
gnuplot*textGray:   white
gnuplot*borderGray: gray50
gnuplot*axisGray:   gray50
gnuplot*line1Gray:  gray100
gnuplot*line2Gray:  gray60
gnuplot*line3Gray:  gray80
gnuplot*line4Gray:  gray40
gnuplot*line5Gray:  gray90
gnuplot*line6Gray:  gray50
gnuplot*line7Gray:  gray70
gnuplot*line8Gray:  gray30

line_resources

gnuplot honors the following resources for setting the width (in pixels) of plot lines (shown here with their default values.) 0 or 1 means a minimal width line of 1 pixel width. A value of 2 or 3 may improve the appearance of some plots.

gnuplot*borderWidth: 2
gnuplot*axisWidth:   0
gnuplot*line1Width:  0
gnuplot*line2Width:  0
gnuplot*line3Width:  0
gnuplot*line4Width:  0
gnuplot*line5Width:  0
gnuplot*line6Width:  0
gnuplot*line7Width:  0
gnuplot*line8Width:  0

gnuplot honors the following resources for setting the dash style used for plotting lines. 0 means a solid line. A two-digit number jk (j and k are >= 1 and <= 9) means a dashed line with a repeated pattern of j pixels on followed by k pixels off. For example, '16' is a "dotted" line with one pixel on followed by six pixels off. More elaborate on/off patterns can be specified with a four-digit value. For example, '4441' is four on, four off, four on, one off. The default values shown below are for monochrome displays or monochrome rendering on color or grayscale displays. For color displays, the default for each is 0 (solid line) except for axisDashes which defaults to a '16' dotted line.

gnuplot*borderDashes:   0
gnuplot*axisDashes:    16
gnuplot*line1Dashes:    0
gnuplot*line2Dashes:   42
gnuplot*line3Dashes:   13
gnuplot*line4Dashes:   44
gnuplot*line5Dashes:   15
gnuplot*line6Dashes: 4441
gnuplot*line7Dashes:   42
gnuplot*line8Dashes:   13

pm3d_resources

#ifdef PM3D

Choosing the appropriate visual class and number of colors is a crucial point in X11 applications and a bit awkward, since X11 supports six visual types in different depths.

By default gnuplot uses the default visual of the screen. The number of colors which can be allocated depends on the visual class chosen. On a visual class with a depth > 12bit, gnuplot starts with a maximal number of 0x200 colors. On a visual class with a depth > 8bit (but <= 12 bit) the maximal number of colors is 0x100, on <= 8bit displays the maximum number of colors is 240 (16 are left for line colors).

Gnuplot first starts to allocate the maximal number of colors as stated above. If this fails, the number of colors is reduced by the factor 2 until gnuplot gets all colors wich are requested. If dividing maxcolors by 2 repeatedly results in a number which is smaller than mincolors gnuplot tries to install a private colormap. In this case the window manager is responsible for swapping colormaps when the pointer is moved in and out the x11 driver's window.

The default for mincolors is maxcolors / (num_colormaps > 1 ? 2 : 8, where num_colormaps is the number of colormaps which are currently used by gnuplot (usually 1, if only one x11 window is open).

Some systems support multiple (different) visual classes together on one screen. On these systems it might be necessary to force gnuplot to use a specific visual class, e.g. the default visual might be 8bit PseudoColor but the screen would also support 24bit TrueColor which would be the preferred choice.

The information about an Xserver's capabilities can be obtained with the program xdpyinfo. For the visual names below you can choose one of StaticGray, GrayScale, StaticColor, PseudoColor, TrueColor, DirectColor. If an Xserver supports a requested visual type at different depths, gnuplot chooses the visual class with the highest depth (deepest). If the requested visual class matches the default visual and multiple classes of this type are supported, the default visual is preferred.

Example: on an 8bit PseudoColor visual you can force a private color map by specifying gnuplot*maxcolors: 240 and gnuplot*mincolors: 240.

 gnuplot*maxcolors:  <integer number>
 gnuplot*mincolors:  <integer number>
 gnuplot*visual:     <visual name>


#endif				/* PM3D */

xlib

The xlib terminal driver supports the X11 Windows System. It generates gnulib_x11 commands. set term x11 behaves similarly to set terminal xlib; set output "|gnuplot_x11". xlib has no options, but see x11.

AUTHOR

Autogenerated from *.trm files in gnuplot terminals subdirectory by

K:\GET\TERM-GNUPLOT-0.90_38I_00A\UTILS\EXTRACT_HELP.PL > GnuplotTerminals.pod

SEE ALSO

Term::Gnuplot.