Offsets

Autoscaling sets the x and y axis ranges to match the coordinates of the data that is plotted. Offsets provide a mechanism to expand these ranges to leave empty space between the data and the plot borders. Autoscaling then further extends each range to reach the next axis tic unless this has been suppressed by set autoscale noextend or set xrange noextend. See noextend (p. ). Offsets affect only scaling for the x1 and y1 axes.

Syntax:

     set offsets <left>, <right>, <top>, <bottom>
     unset offsets
     show offsets

Each offset may be a constant or an expression. Each defaults to 0. By default, the left and right offsets are given in units of the first x axis, the top and bottom offsets in units of the first y axis. Alternatively, you may specify the offsets as a fraction of the total graph dimension by using the keyword "graph". Only "graph" offsets are possible for nonlinear axes.

A positive offset expands the axis range in the specified direction, e.g. a positive bottom offset makes ymin more negative. Negative offsets interact badly with autoscaling and clipping.

Example:

     set autoscale noextend
     set offsets graph 0.05, 0, 2, 2
     plot sin(x)

This graph of sin(x) will have y range [-3:3] because the function will be autoscaled to [-1:1] and the vertical offsets add 2 at each end of the range. The x range will be [-11:10] because the default is [-10:10] and it has been expanded to the left by 0.05 of that total range.