xtics

Fine control of the major (labeled) tics on the x axis is possible with the set xtics command. The tics may be turned off with the unset xtics command, and may be turned on (the default state) with set xtics. Similar commands control the major tics on the y, z, x2 and y2 axes.

Syntax:

      set xtics {axis | border} {{no}mirror}
                {in | out} {scale {default | <major> {,<minor>}}}
                {{no}rotate {by <ang>}} {offset <offset> | nooffset}
                {left | right | center | autojustify}
                {add}
                {  autofreq
                 | <incr>
                 | <start>, <incr> {,<end>}
                 | ({"<label>"} <pos> {<level>} {,{"<label>"}...) }
                {format "formatstring"} {font "name{,<size>}"} {{no}enhanced}
                { numeric | timedate | geographic }
                {{no}logscale}
                { rangelimited }
                { textcolor <colorspec> }
      unset xtics
      show xtics

The same syntax applies to ytics, ztics, x2tics, y2tics and cbtics.

axis or border tells gnuplot to put the tics (both the tics themselves and the accompanying labels) along the axis or the border, respectively. If the axis is very close to the border, the axis option will move the tic labels to outside the border. The relevant margin settings will usually be sized badly by the automatic layout algorithm in this case.

mirror tells gnuplot to put unlabeled tics at the same positions on the opposite border. nomirror does what you think it does.

in and out change the tic marks to be drawn inwards or outwards.

With scale, the size of the tic marks can be adjusted. If <minor> is not specified, it is 0.5*<major>. The default size 1.0 for major tics and 0.5 for minor tics is requested by scale default.

rotate asks gnuplot to rotate the text through 90 degrees, which will be done if the terminal driver in use supports text rotation. norotate cancels this. rotate by <ang> asks for rotation by <ang> degrees, supported by some terminal types.

The defaults are border mirror norotate for tics on the x and y axes, and border nomirror norotate for tics on the x2 and y2 axes. For the z axis, the {axis | border} option is not available and the default is nomirror. If you do want to mirror the z-axis tics, you might want to create a bit more room for them with set border.

The <offset> is specified by either x,y or x,y,z, and may be preceded by first, second, graph, screen, or character to select the coordinate system. <offset> is the offset of the tics texts from their default positions, while the default coordinate system is character. See coordinates for details. nooffset switches off the offset.

Example:

Move xtics more closely to the plot.

      set xtics offset 0,graph 0.05

To change the relative order of drawing axis tics and the plot itself, use the set grid command with options 'front', 'back' or 'layerdefault'. There is no option to assign different axis tics or grid lines to different layers.

By default, tic labels are justified automatically depending on the axis and rotation angle to produce aesthetically pleasing results. If this is not desired, justification can be overridden with an explicit left, right or center keyword. autojustify restores the default behavior.

set xtics with no options restores the default border or axis if xtics are being displayed; otherwise it has no effect. Any previously specified tic frequency or position {and labels} are retained.

Tic positions are calculated automatically by default or if the autofreq option is given.

A series of tic positions can be specified by giving either a tic interval alone, or a start point, interval, and end point (see xtics series).

Individual tic positions can be specified individually by providing an explicit list of positions, where each position may have an associated text label. See xtics list.

However they are specified, tics will only be plotted when in range.

Format (or omission) of the tic labels is controlled by set format, unless the explicit text of a label is included in the set xtics ("<label>") form.

Minor (unlabeled) tics can be added automatically by the set mxtics command, or at explicit positions by the set xtics ("" <pos> 1, ...) form.

The appearance of the tics (line style, line width etc.) is determined by the border line (see set border), even if the tics are drawn at the axes.