---
name: "PDL::Graphics::PGPLOTOptions"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "libpgplot-perl"
version: "1:2.35-2"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/PDL::Graphics::PGPLOTOptions"
---

# PDL::Graphics::PGPLOTOptions(3pm)

Setting PGPLOT options

## NAME

PDL::Graphics::PGPLOTOptions - Setting PGPLOT options

## SYNOPSIS

use PGPLOTOptions qw('default\_options');

## DESCRIPTION

This package contains one function (at present) which returns PDL::Option objects for default settings for plot windows and plot commands. This should be complemented by functions that could affect this such as file reading commands etc.

## OPTIONS

The following is a listing of options that are set in this file and what they do and what their default value is

### Window specific options

These options modify the appearance of windows and can also modify the default settings for creation of plot axes etc.

- Device

  The default PGPLOT device to use. The default value is set to the PGPLOT\_DEV environment variable if set, otherwise to '?'.

- AxisColour

  The colour with which to draw axes. Default value=3 (Green)

- HardLW, HardCH, HardFont, HardAxisColour, HardColour

  The linewidth, character height, font and axis colour to use on hardcopy devices. The default values are HardLW=1, HardCH=1.4, HardFont=2 (Roman), HardAxisColour=1 (Black) and HardColour=1 as well. The latter is the default plot colour to use on hardcopy devices.

- Axis

  The axis style to use. See the PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT::Window documentation for details. It defaults to 'Normal' which is a labelled box. Valid arguments are 'Empty', 'Box', 'Normal', 'Axes', 'Grid', 'LogX', 'LogY', 'LogXY'.

- AspectRatio

  The aspect ratio of the output device. The default value is device dependent.

- WindowWidth

  The width of the output window in inches and defaults to as big as possible.

- WindowXSize and WindowYSize

  These are alternatives to AspectRatio and WindowWidth.

- WindowName

  The name of the window - can later be retrieved using **name()**. It defaults to 'Window'+Window ID.

- NXPanel

  The number of panels in the X-direction - defaults to 1

- NYPanel

  The number of panels in the Y-direction - defaults to 1

- Justify

  A boolean value which, if true, causes both axes to drawn to the same scale; see the PGPLOT `pgenv()` command for more information.

- TightLabels

  Boolean value which, if true, causes axis labels to be pulled slightly closer to the main viewport than usual.  That's handy for making multi-panel plots.  Undef (the default) is equivalent to 0 for panels with NYPanels \<= 1 and 1 for panels with NYPanels \> 1.

- TitleSize

  The relative size of a plot or image title, compared to other annotations. Defaults to 1.0 (original behavior) but can be set to, e.g., 1.5 to emphasize graph titles in a multipanel plot.

- Border

  Adjust the spacing around the plot. See the documentation in PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT::Window for details.

- CharSize

  The default charsize for the plot - used when annotating the axes for instance. It defaults to 1.

- PlotPosition

  The position of the plot in normalised coordinates.

- Erase

  Explicitly erase the plotting surface, normally required when making new plots with PlotPosition.

### Plot specific options

For the moment see the `"PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT::Window"` documentation for these.

### set\_pgplot\_options

This function allows the user to set the default PGPLOT options. It is particularly useful in the `".perldlrc"` file since one can do

```
  use PDL::Graphics::PGPLOTOptions ('set_pgplot_options');
  set_pgplot_options('Device' => '/xs', 'HardLW' => 3);
```

for instance to set the default values. The main drawback is that the routine is rather unflexible with no synonyms or case-insensitivity.