1
2Gnuplot PGF/TikZ terminal
3=========================
4
5The PGF/TikZ terminal mainly consists of a generic Lua terminal to
6wrap the gnuplot terminal C functions. This allows writing gnuplot
7terminals in Lua instead of C. The first implemented `backend' is the
8PGF/TikZ terminal for the use with TeX/LaTeX.
9
10The actual terminal functionality is a provided by a separate Lua script
11`gnuplot-tikz.lua'. The LaTeX style file is usually derived from the
12PGF/TikZ terminal script to keep things consistent.
13
14
15
16Why all that hassle?
17====================
18
19There are already a couple of terminals usable for LaTeX so why another one?
20
21Here is a brief list of reasons:
22
23 1. I like PGF/TikZ and there is no such terminal so far.
24 2. I also like lerning Lua and the use of Lua makes this terminal
25    very versatile, e.g. there is no recompilation necessary if
26    you want to change/add any terminal features and you also gain
27    all the benefits of using a scripting language in this
28    place -- whatever that means to you ;-)
29 3. Most advantages are directly related to PGF/TikZ:
30    a. rescaling the plot does not automatically change the linewidths
31       nor the size of points (aka plot marks), fonts, arrow tips or
32       fill patterns. The aspect ratio of these elements will also
33       remain unchanged on unproportional scalings.
34    b. you can directly produce documents of any output format
35       that is supported by PGF/TikZ.
36    c. changing the appearance of the plots is an easy task even
37       after the generation of the PGF/TikZ code. This can be done
38       locally or globally by changing certain TikZ-styles or
39       dimensions.
40    d. it is also easy to put the keys (aka legend) into the normal text
41       area (e.g. the plot caption), because the line and plotmark styles
42       are available.
43    e. overlaying of the plot with e.g. additional nodes, arrows etc. is
44       possible through the use the of tikz coordinates of the actual
45       plotting area.
46
47For more reasons please have a look at the PGF/TikZ manual ;-)
48
49
50
51Generating style and help file
52==============================
53
54To generate the style files and wrapper for the various TeX flavors enter
55
56  lua gnuplot-tikz.lua style
57
58on the command line. The files generated should be
59
60  t-gnuplot-lua-tikz.tex        (Context wrapper)
61  gnuplot-lua-tikz.tex          (plain TeX wrapper)
62  gnuplot-lua-tikz.sty          (LaTeX wrapper)
63  gnuplot-lua-tikz-common.tex   (common definitions)
64
65and can be copied to the appropriate places.
66
67  lua gnuplot-tikz.lua help
68
69prints the terminal help on stdout and
70
71  lua gnuplot-tikz.lua termhelp > gnuplot-tikz.help
72
73generates the version to be included in gnuplot help system.
74
75
76
77Usage
78=====
79
80The usage is quite similar to the other terminals with the difference that
81most terminal options are processed by the external Lua script. To see the
82list of additional script options just type
83  gnuplot> set term lua tikz help
84or
85  # lua gnuplot-tikz.lua
86on the command line.
87
88
89A minimalist gnuplot session (or script) may look like this:
90
91> set term lua tikz     # activate the Lua terminal and load "gnuplot.lua"
92> set out 'test.tex'    # write output to file 'test.tex'
93> plot x*x              # plot a nice parabola
94
95The generated file `test.tex' can be used by simply adding the line
96
97 \input{test.tex}
98
99to your LaTeX document and by adding
100
101 \usepackage{gnuplot-lua-tikz}
102
103to the preamble.
104
105
106
107
108
109Any comments, suggestions and bug reports are most welcome and can go
110to <peter(at)affenbande.org> or the Sourceforge bug and patch trackers.
111
112Have fun!
113
114Peter Hedwig <peter@affenbande.org>
115