Gnuplot tips

Enable "linestyle" functionality for Gnuplot's x11 terminal

When using the X11 server's default settings, Gnuplot's X11 terminal does not support different linestyles. Thus, all line plots have solid line types, independent of the "linestyle" specified. To enable support for the various linestyles, add the lines below to your ~/.Xdefaults.

 ! gnuplot settings
 gnuplot*dashed: on
 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

To enable these settings, type the following command at the shell prompt.

 xrdb -merge .Xdefaults

To avoid having to type this command repeatedly, the command may be placed in your shell script resource file ~/.profile for example.

Enable UTF-8 text support for Gnuplot's x11 terminal

By default, Gnuplot's X11 terminal does not support UTF-8 characters when displaying text labels or setting plot titles. To enable support for UTF-8, add the lines below to your ~/.Xdefaults.

 ! gnuplot settings
 gnuplot*font: mbfont:-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-*-*-100-100-*-*-iso10646-*
 gnuplot*encoding: utf-8

To enable these settings, type the following command at the shell prompt.

 xrdb -merge .Xdefaults

To avoid having to type this command repeatedly, the command may be placed in your shell script resource file, ~/.profile for example.