About This Book
This book is intended to be a comprehensive introduction to gnuplot: from the basics to the power features and beyond. Besides providing a tutorial on gnuplot itself, it demonstrates how to apply and use gnuplot to extract insight from data.
The gnuplot program has always had complete and detailed reference documentation, but what was missing was a continuous presentation that tied all the different bits and pieces of gnuplot together and demonstrated how to use them to achieve certain tasks. This book attempts to fill that gap.
The book should also serve as a handy reference for more advanced gnuplot users, and as an introduction to graphical ways of knowledge discovery.
And finally, this book tries to show you how to use gnuplot to achieve surprisingly nifty effects that will make everyone say, “How did you do that?”
This book is divided into four parts.
The first part provides a tutorial introduction to gnuplot and some of the things you can do with it. If you’re new to gnuplot, start here. Even if you already know gnuplot, I suggest you at least skim the chapters in this part: you might pick up a few new tricks. (For example, did you know that you can use gnuplot to plot the Unix password file? No? Thought so.)