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How do I generate a basic plot for data in a file?

The procedures listed above describe how to get your data in to SM. Then the steps to plotting it are as follows:

• Define the plot device you want to use with the device command. The syntax and list of available devices are described in the manual (see section 'Device' in The SM Manual).

• Declare the data file with the data command, see section How should I get data into SM?, or you could see section 'Data' in The SM Manual. You might want to use the macro da instead, which stops SM worrying about things like $ or / in the filename.

• Read in the data vectors with the read command, also described previously and in the manual.

• Define the axis limits with the limits command.

• Draw the axes with the box command

• Plot the data points using the connect command to plot the points as a connected curve, or the points command to plot them as points. If you are using connect you can also define the line type with the ltype command (see section 'Ltype' in The SM Manual). If you want to plot points, you should first define the point style with the ptype command. ptype allows you to define the point as a type of polygon, with any number of sides, and 4 basic forms (see section 'Ptype' in The SM Manual). Ptype also allows you to define your own private symbols, or use strings that you've read from a file.

• If you want to label the axes, use the xlabel and ylabel commands. SM is able to plot Greek letters, superscripts and subscripts, many sorts of symbols, and a couple of other special fonts. The available fonts are listed in the manual (@xref{Fonts, Fonts, ,Fonts, sm, The SM Manual}).

There are a number of other commands that elaborate on this basic set to allow logarithmic axes, labelling curves, putting an ID on the plot, reading positions from the plot with a cursor, manipulating 2-D data, and much more. Some of these commands are described in this tutorial (see section What are the other common commands?); the definitive source, however, is in the real manual, where all the commands plus their syntax are described.

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