Date plots in gnuplot rest on two settings that must agree: set xdata time declares the x axis as time, and set timefmt describes the exact date format used inside your data file. The script below plots daily visitors from a CSV file of ISO dates. The file visitors.csv uses ISO dates (YYYY-MM-DD) in column…
The complete workflow has four stages: a gnuplot script produces the figure, a LaTeX-aware terminal (epslatex or tikz) produces the includable file, the document pulls it in with \input or \includegraphics, and one compile produces the paper. This page walks the whole chain once, with the exact commands at each step. Step 1 — One…
Curve fitting is built into gnuplot as the fit command: define a model function with unknown parameters, give the parameters starting values, and run fit f(x) “growth.dat” using 1:2 via a, b to adjust them by least squares. The script below fits an exponential to growth data. The file growth.dat holds x in column 1…
A publication-quality figure is mostly decided before you export: export at the exact size the figure will be printed, use a vector terminal, and keep text, lines and colors legible at that size. The checklist below turns those principles into a five-minute pre-submission routine, with a template script that already encodes them. # Template: single-column…
One figure with several panels is a gnuplot multiplot: set multiplot layout reserves a grid, each following plot fills the next cell, and unset multiplot closes the figure. The script below builds a 2×2 panel of four related curves. set multiplot layout 2,2 rowsfirst title “Four Views of Related Functions” font “,14” set title “sin(x)”…
On the cairo terminals (pngcairo, pdfcairo, epscairo) and the svg terminal, a gnuplot font is a single string of the form “Family,Size” — for example font “Arial,12”. You set it once on the terminal line as the default for the whole figure, and override it per element (title, labels, tics, key) wherever one piece of…
Three-dimensional plots in gnuplot use splot, the 3D sibling of plot: give it a function of x and y (or a data grid) and it draws a surface. The script below renders z = sin(x)·cos(y) as a hidden-line surface. set hidden3d set isosamples 40, 40 set xlabel “x” set ylabel “y” set zlabel “z” set…
For figures on the web, SVG is gnuplot’s best format: the svg terminal writes a true vector file that stays sharp at any display size, keeps its text as text, and is typically far smaller than an equivalent high-resolution PNG. One terminal line is all it takes. set terminal svg size 800,600 enhanced font “Sans,12″…
A gnuplot heatmap is a flat 3D plot: read a matrix of values with splot … matrix, switch on set pm3d map to view it from straight above, and let a palette map values to colors. The script below renders a small temperature grid. The file matrix.dat is a plain grid of numbers — each…
The tikz terminal goes one step further than epslatex: instead of a PostScript graphic plus LaTeX text, gnuplot writes the entire figure — axes, curves and text — as a native TikZ picture in a single .tex file. LaTeX then draws the figure itself, so it blends completely into documents that already use TikZ. set…
