3.24.88 xlabel

The xlabel command sets the x axis label. Similar commands set labels on the other axes.

Syntax:

      set xlabel {"<label>"} {offset <offset>} {font "<font>{,<size>}"}
                 {{textcolor | tc} {lt <line_type> | default}} {{no}enhanced}
                 {rotate by <degrees>}
      show xlabel

The same syntax applies to x2label, ylabel, y2label, zlabel and cblabel.

If <offset> is specified by either x,y or x,y,z the label is moved by the given offset. It may be preceded by ‘first‘, ‘second‘, ‘graph‘, ‘screen‘, or ‘character‘ to select the coordinate system. See ‘coordinates‘ for details. By default, the ‘character‘ coordinate system is used. For example, "‘set xlabel offset -1,0‘" will change only the x offset of the title, moving the label roughly one character width to the left. The size of a character depends on both the font and the terminal.

<font> is used to specify the font in which the label is written; the units of the font <size> depend upon which terminal is used.

‘textcolor lt <n>‘ sets the text color to that of line type <n>.

‘noenhanced‘ requests that the label text not be processed by the enhanced text mode parser, even if enhanced text mode is currently active.

To clear a label, put no options on the command line, e.g., "y2label".

The default positions of the axis labels are as follows:

xlabel: The x-axis label is centered below the bottom axis.

ylabel: The position of the y-axis label depends on the terminal, and can be one of the following three positions:

1. Horizontal text flushed left at the top left of the plot. Terminals that cannot rotate text will probably use this method. If x2tics is also in use, the ylabel may overwrite the left-most x2tic label. This may be remedied by adjusting the ylabel position or the left margin.

2. Vertical text centered vertically at the left of the plot. Terminals that can rotate text will probably use this method.

3. Horizontal text centered vertically at the left of the plot. The EEPIC, LaTeX and TPIC drivers use this method. The EEPIC driver will produce a stack of characters so as not to overwrite the plot. With other drivers (such as LaTeX and TPIC), the user probably has to insert line breaks using \\ to prevent the ylabel from overwriting the plot.

zlabel: The z-axis label is centered along the z axis and placed in the space above the grid level.

cblabel: The color box axis label is centered along the box and placed below or right according to horizontal or vertical color box gradient.

y2label: The y2-axis label is placed to the right of the y2 axis. The position is terminal-dependent in the same manner as is the y-axis label.

x2label: The x2-axis label is placed above the top axis but below the plot title. It is also possible to create an x2-axis label by using new-line characters to make a multi-line plot title, e.g.,

      set title "This is the title\n\nThis is the x2label"

Note that double quotes must be used. The same font will be used for both lines, of course.

The orientation (rotation angle) of the x, x2, y and y2 axis labels can be explicitly changed from the default setting, but this applies only to 2D plots and only on terminals that support text rotation.

If you are not satisfied with the default position of an axis label, use ‘set label‘ instead–that command gives you much more control over where text is placed.

Please see ‘syntax‘ for further information about backslash processing and the difference between single- and double-quoted strings.