PLOTICUS(1)

NAME
ploticus

DESCRIPTION
Ploticus is a free software package that creates graphical data displays for web pages and intranets, paper reports, posters, slides, or interactive use. Ploticus is script-driven, and can be invoked automatically (automated) from web servers and other programs. Ploticus can work with flat ascii or spreadsheet data sets that can include numerics and text as well as dates and times in a wide variety of notations. It also has built-in capability of computing frequency distributions, cross-tabs, medians, quartiles, and curve fitting.

INCLUDES
Ploticus includes two programs, pl and pltab. pl creates single plots and pages where everything is layed out by coordinate position. pltab takes tabular text (such as raw program output) and sets it into a nice font, preserving columns and adding embellishments and plots.

GETTING STARTED

Create a ploticus script in a text editor and then run the ploticus script. For example, if your ploticus script is called pie2.htm, you could generate an EPS file by typing the command
pl -eps pie2.htm

You can modify the script as desired with your favorite text editor.

AUTHOR
Stephen C. Grubb

COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1998, 1999 Stephen C. Grubb. The complete copyright statement including permissions for modification and/or distribution is available at www.sgpr.net. It should also be present in the software distribution.

SEE ALSO
http://www.sgpr.net has the latest software versions, documentation, and a large gallery of examples.

Here is a directory of the available man pages for ploticus (if they are not present you can download them from the above web site):

PROGRAMS
	 pl(1)  	the pl program
	 pltab(1)	the pltab program
GENERAL INFO
	 Faq(pl)	frequently asked questions
	 scripts(pl)	script syntax
	 dataformat(pl)	plot data file formats
	 scaleunits(pl)	various means of scaling a plot
	 paper(pl)	producing paper-based reports (PostScript, EPS)
	 web(pl)	producing web-based graphics (PNG, GIF)
	 posters(pl)	producing posters
	 slides(pl)	producing slides
	 interactive(pl)	interactive graphics (X11)
	 controlling(pl)	controlling ploticus from other programs
PROCEDURES
	 annotate(pl)	add annotation
	 areadef(pl)	define a plotting area
	 axis(pl)	render an axis, either X or Y
	 bars(pl)	produce bar graphs or histograms
	 bevelrect(pl)	draw a bevelled rectangle
	 breakaxis(pl)	break an axis to accomodate an extreme value
	 catslide(pl)	adjust placement of categories
	 curvefit(pl)	generate a curve from data points
	 defineunits(pl)	explicitly define scaling units
	 drawcommands(pl)	draw using command set
	 endproc(pl)	mark the end of a proc's attributes
	 getdata(pl)	get or specify plot data
	 import(pl)	import an external GIF file
	 legend(pl)	render a legend
	 legendentry(pl)	define a legend entry explicitly
	 line(pl)	draw arbitrary lines
	 lineplot(pl)	produce a line plot
	 originaldata(pl)	reference original data set
	 page(pl)	set page-wide attributes/ break page
	 pie(pl)	produce a pie graph
	 print(pl)	show outliers, contents of variables, etc.
	 rangebar(pl)	produce a rangebar / boxplot
	 rangesweep(pl)	produce a range sweep
	 scatterplot(pl)	produce a scatterplot
	 tabulate(pl)	run tabulations & frequency distributions
	 transform(pl)	perform transformations on data set
	 trailer(pl)	specify data at end of control file
ATTRIBUTE TYPES
	 attributetypes(pl)	description of attribute types
	 color(pl)	colors
	 condex(pl)	conditional expressions
	 linedetails(pl)	line style, width, color, etc.
	 symboldetails(pl)	symbol shape, color, etc.
	 textdetails(pl)	text size, color, style, position, etc.
DETAILS
	 dates(pl)	working with date data
	 times(pl)	working with time data
	 missingdata(pl)	Working with missing data
	 variables(pl)	system @variables
	 functions(pl)	available $functions
	 specialchars(pl)	Special characters
	 config(pl) 	ploticus configuration files
	 limits(pl)	program limitations
	 Problems(pl)	where to ask questions & report problems