gnuplot 4.6 17
LaTeX, pdf, png, postscript, ...). Gnuplot is easily extensible to include new output modes. Recent additions
include interactive terminals based on wxWidgets (usable on multiple platforms), and Qt. Mouseable plots
embedded in web pages can be generated using the svg or HTML5 canvas terminal drivers.
The command language of gnuplot is case sensitive, i.e. commands and function names written in lowercase
are not the same as those written in capitals. All command names may be abbreviated as long as the
abbreviation is not ambiguous. Any number of commands may appear on a line, separated by semicolons
(;). Strings may be set off by either single or double quotes, although there are some subtle differences. See
syntax (p. 41) and quotes (p. 41) for more details. Examples:
load "filename"
cd ’dir’
Commands may extend over several input lines by ending each line but the last with a backslash (\). The
backslash must be the last character on each line. The effect is as if the backslash and newline were not there.
That is, no white space is implied, nor is a comment terminated. Therefore, commenting out a continued line
comments out the entire command (see comments (p. 22)). But note that if an error occurs somewhere
on a multi-line command, the parser may not be able to locate precisely where the error is and in that case
will not necessarily point to the correct line.
In this document, curly braces ({}) denote optional arguments and a vertical bar (|) separates mutually
exclusive choices. Gnuplot keywords or help topics are indicated by backquotes or boldface (where
available). Angle brackets (<>) are used to mark replaceable tokens. In many cases, a default value of the
token will be taken for optional arguments if the token is omitted, but these cases are not always denoted
with braces around the angle brackets.
For built-in help on any topic, type help followed by the name of the topic or help ? to get a menu of
available topics.
The new gnuplot user should begin by reading about plotting (if in an interactive session, type help
plotting).
See the simple.dem demo, also available together with other demos on the web page
http://www.gnuplot.info/demo/
Gnuplot can be started from a command line or from an icon according to the desktop environment.
Running it from command line can take the syntax
gnuplot {OPTIONS} file1 file2 ...
where file1, file2, etc. are input file as in the load command. On X11-based systems, you can use
gnuplot {X11OPTIONS} {OPTIONS} file1 file2 ...
see your X11 documentation and x11 (p. 226) in this document.
Options interpreted by gnuplot may come anywhere on the line. Files are executed in the order specified, as
are commands supplied by the -e option, for example
gnuplot file1.in -e "reset" file2.in
The special filename "-" is used to force reading from stdin. Gnuplot exits after the last file is processed. If
no load files are named, Gnuplot takes interactive input from stdin. See help batch/interactive (p. 20)
for more details. The options specific to gnuplot can be listed by typing
gnuplot --help
See command line options (p. 20) for more details.
In sessions with an interactive plot window you can hit ’h’ anywhere on the plot for help about hotkeys and
mousing features. Section seeking-assistance will help you to find further information, help and FAQ.
Seeking-assistance
The canonical gnuplot web page can be found at