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plot command-line optionsThe plot filter plot translates GNU graphics metafiles to other
formats. The ‘-T’ option is used to specify the output format.
Files in metafile format are produced by GNU graph,
pic2plot, tek2plot, plotfont, and other
applications that use the GNU libplot graphics library. For
technical details on the metafile format, see Metafiles.
Input file names may be specified anywhere on the command line. That is, the relative order of file names and command-line options does not matter. If no files are specified, or the file name ‘-’ is specified, the standard input is read. An output file is written to standard output, unless the ‘-T X’ option is specified. In that case the output is displayed in a window or windows on an X Window System display, and there is no output file.
The full set of command-line options is listed below. There are four sorts of option:
plot, i.e., relevant only if no
output format is specified with the ‘-T’ option.
Each option that takes an argument is followed, in parentheses, by the type and default value of the argument.
The following options set the values of drawing parameters.
idraw-editable Postscript, the WebCGM format for Web-based
vector graphics, the format used by the xfig drawing editor,
the Hewlett–Packard PCL 5 printer language, the Hewlett–Packard
Graphics Language (by default, HP-GL/2), the ReGIS (remote
graphics instruction set) format developed by DEC, Tektronix
format, and device-independent GNU graphics metafile format. The
option ‘--display-type’ is an obsolete alternative to
‘--output-format’.
Metafiles may consist of one or more pages, numbered beginning with 1. Also, each page may contain multiple `frames'. plot -T X, plot -T regis, or plot -T tek, which plot in real
time, will separate successive frames by screen erasures. plot -T
png, plot -T pnm, plot -T gif, plot -T svg,
plot -T ai, plot -T ps, plot -T cgm, plot -T
fig, plot -T pcl, plot -T hpgl, which do not plot in real
time, will display only the last frame of any multi-frame page.
The default behavior, if ‘-p’ is not used, is to display all pages.
For example, plot -T X displays each page in its own X window. If the ‘-T png’ option, the ‘-T pnm’ option, the
‘-T gif’ option, the ‘-T svg’ option, the ‘-T ai’ option,
or the ‘-T fig’ option is used, the default behavior is to display
only the first page, since files in PNG, PNM, pseudo-GIF, SVG, AI, or
Fig format may contain only a single page of graphics.
Most metafiles produced by the GNU plotting utilities (e.g., by raw
graph) contain only a single page, consisting of two frames: an
empty one to clear the display, and a second one containing graphics.
This option is useful when merging together single-page plots from
different sources. For example, it can be used to merge together plots
obtained from separate invocations of graph. This is an
alternative form of multiplotting (see Multiplotting).
plot -T X,
plot -T png, plot -T pnm, and plot -T gif, for all
of which the size can be expressed in terms of pixels. The environment
variable BITMAPSIZE may equally well be used to specify the size.
The graphics display used by plot -T X is a popped-up X window. Command-line positioning of this window on an X Window
System display is supported. For example, if bitmap_size is
"570x570+0+0" then the window will be popped up in the upper left
corner.
If you choose a rectangular (non-square) window size, the fonts in the plot will be scaled anisotropically, i.e., by different factors in the horizontal and vertical direction. Any font that cannot be anisotropically scaled will be replaced by a default scalable font, such as the Hershey vector font "HersheySerif".
For backward compatibility, plot -T X allows the user to set the
window size and position by setting the X resource
Xplot.geometry, instead of ‘--bitmap-size’ or
BITMAPSIZE.
EMULATE_COLOR to "yes".
The reason for splitting long polygonal lines is that some display
devices (e.g., old Postscript printers and HP-GL pen plotters) have
limited buffer sizes. The environment variable MAX_LINE_LENGTH
can also be used to specify the maximum line length. This option has no
effect on plot -T tek or raw plot, since they draw
polylines in real time and have no buffer limitations.
plot -T svg,
plot -T ai, plot -T ps, plot -T cgm, plot -T
fig, plot -T pcl, and plot -T hpgl. "letter" means an
8.5in by 11in page. Any ISO page size in the range
"a0"..."a4" or ANSI page size in the range "a"..."e" may be
specified ("letter" is an alias for "a" and "tabloid" is an alias
for "b"). "legal", "ledger", and "b5" are recognized page sizes
also. The environment variable PAGESIZE can equally well be used
to specify the page size.
For plot -T ai, plot -T ps, plot -T pcl, and
plot -T fig, the graphics display (or `viewport') within which
the plot is drawn will be, by default, a square region centered on the
specified page. For plot -T hpgl, it will be a square region of
the same size, but may be positioned differently. Either or both of the
dimensions of the graphics display can be specified explicitly. For
example, pagesize could be specified as "letter,xsize=4in", or
"a4,xsize=10cm,ysize=15cm". The dimensions are allowed to be negative
(a negative dimension results in a reflection).
The position of the graphics display, relative to its default position, may optionally be adjusted by specifying an offset vector. For example, pagesize could be specified as "letter,yoffset=1.2in", or "a4,xoffset=−5mm,yoffset=2.0cm". It is also possible to position the graphics display precisely, by specifying the location of its lower left corner relative to the lower left corner of the page. For example, pagesize could be specified as "letter,xorigin=2in,yorigin=3in", or "a4,xorigin=0.5cm,yorigin=0.5cm". The preceding options may be intermingled.
plot -T svg and plot -T cgm ignore the "xoffset",
"yoffset", "xorigin", and "yorigin" options, since SVG format and
WebCGM format have no notion of the Web page on which the graphics
display will ultimately be positioned. However, they do respect the
"xsize" and "ysize" options. For more on page sizes, see Page and Viewport Sizes.
The following options set the initial values of additional drawing parameters. Any of these may be overridden by a directive in the metafile itself. In fact, these options are useful only when plotting old metafiles in the pre-GNU `plot(5)' format, which did not include such directives.
plot -T X,
plot -T png, plot -T pnm, plot -T gif, plot
-T cgm, plot -T regis, and plot -Tmeta. An unrecognized name sets the color to the default. For information on
what names are recognized, see Color Names. The environment
variable BG_COLOR can equally well be used to specify the
background color.
If the ‘-T png’ or ‘-T gif’ option is used, a transparent PNG
file or a transparent pseudo-GIF, respectively, may be produced by
setting the TRANSPARENT_COLOR environment variable to the name of
the background color. See plot Environment. If the ‘-T
svg’ or ‘-T cgm’ option is used, an output file without a
background may be produced by setting the background color to "none".
plot -T pcl, for which
"Univers" is the default, and plot -T png, plot -T pnm,
plot -T gif, plot -T hpgl, plot -T regis,
plot -T tek, and raw plot, for all of which "HersheySerif"
is the default.) Set the font initially used for text (i.e., for
`labels') to font_name. Font names are case-insensitive. If the specified font is not available, the default font will be used.
Which fonts are available depends on which ‘-T’ option is used.
For a list of all fonts, see Text Fonts. The plotfont
utility will produce a character map of any available font.
See plotfont.
libplot graphics library should be used.
This is usually 1/850 times the size of the display, although if
‘-T X’, ‘-T png’, ‘-T pnm’, or ‘-T gif’ is
specified, it is zero. By convention, a zero-thickness line is the
thinnest line that can be drawn. This is the case in all output
formats. Note, however, that the drawing editors idraw and
xfig treat zero-thickness lines as invisible.
plot -T tek and plot -T regis do not support drawing lines
with other than a default thickness, and plot -T hpgl does not
support doing so if the environment variable HPGL_VERSION is
set to a value less than "2" (the default).
The following option is relevant only to raw plot, i.e., relevant
only if no output type is specified with the ‘-T’ option. In this
case plot outputs a graphics metafile, which may be translated to
other formats by a second invocation of plot.
META_PORTABLE to "yes".
plot will automatically determine which type of GNU metafile
format the input is in. There are two types: binary (the default)
and portable (human-readable). The binary format is machine-dependent.
See Metafiles.
For compatibility with older plotting software, the reading of input files in the pre-GNU `plot(5)' format is also supported. This is normally a binary format, with each integer in the metafile represented as a pair of bytes. The order of the two bytes is machine dependent. You may specify that input file(s) are in plot(5) format rather than ordinary GNU metafile format by using either the ‘-h’ option (“high byte first”) or the ‘-l’ option (“low byte first”), whichever is appropriate. Some non-GNU systems support an ASCII (human-readable) variant of plot(5) format. You may specify that the input is in this format by using the ‘-A’ option. Irrespective of the variant, a file in plot(5) format includes only one page of graphics.
plottoa.
The following options request information.
plot -T X, plot -T svg, plot -T ai,
plot -T ps, plot -T cgm, and plot -T fig each
support the 35 standard Postscript fonts. plot -T svg,
plot -T ai, plot -T pcl, and plot -T hpgl support
the 45 standard PCL 5 fonts, and plot -T pcl and plot
-T hpgl support a number of Hewlett–Packard vector fonts. All of the
preceding, together with plot -T png, plot -T pnm,
plot -T gif, plot -T regis, and plot -T tek,
support a set of 22 Hershey vector fonts. Raw plot in principle supports any of these fonts, since its output must be
translated to other formats with plot. The plotfont
utility will produce a character map of any available font.
See plotfont.
plot and the plotting utilities
package, and exit.