Gnuplot in Action

Chapter 6. Decorations

This chapter covers

• Locations on a graph
• Adding arrows, labels, and other decorations
• Providing explanations using a key
• Changing the overall appearance

Data alone doesn’t tell a story. To be useful, the data needs to be placed into context: at least, we must tell the observer what the data is (such as position versus time, particle count versus scattering angle, stock price versus date, or whatever) and what units the data is plotted in (centimeters or inches, seconds or minutes, dollars or euros). No plot is complete without this information.

But we can do much more to make a graph useful and informative: we can add arrows and annotations on the graph to point out and explain interesting features. We may also want to ...