Gnuplot Plot Preview

Plot functions and data in your notes with gnuplot. Write a gnuplot code block and the plot appears in its place, in Reading view and Live Preview. Gnuplot is built into the plugin, so there's nothing else to install. Desktop only.

```gnuplot
set grid
set xrange [-10:10]
plot sin(x) title "sin(x)", cos(x) title "cos(x)"
```

Features

• Plots in Reading view, Live Preview, embedded notes, hover previews, Canvas cards and exported PDFs.
• Plot data from CSV, DAT or TXT files in your vault; plots redraw when those files change.
• Functions, inline data, 3D plots (splot) and multiplots.
• Captions and alt text for each plot.
• A button to see a plot's code without leaving Reading view.
• Follows your theme: plots stay readable in dark themes.
• Works offline.

Install

1. In Obsidian, open Settings → Community plugins and turn off Restricted mode if it's on.
2. Select Browse, search for Gnuplot Plot Preview, then select Install and Enable.

To install by hand instead, download main.js, manifest.json and styles.css from the latest release into <your vault>/.obsidian/plugins/gnuplot-plot-preview/, then enable the plugin.

Writing plots

Put gnuplot commands in a code block tagged gnuplot. Every plot is drawn 1000 × 500 and scaled to fit the note. Each block starts fresh, so variables and data don't carry over from other blocks.

The plugin chooses the output format itself, so leave out set terminal and set output.

Plotting data files

Name a .csv, .dat or .txt file in plot or splot, relative to the note:

```gnuplot
set datafile separator comma
plot "data/results.csv" using 1:2 with linespoints title "Results"
```

• Paths start from the note's folder. ../ reaches other folders of the vault.
• Only files in your vault can be read. A path that leads outside it shows "the file is outside this vault".
• Files in hidden folders (names starting with .) aren't found, because Obsidian doesn't index them.
• Write the file name directly; names built from variables, URLs, and load or call aren't supported.
• When a data file changes, is created, deleted or renamed, the plots that use it redraw. Refresh data in the command palette rereads every file.

Captions and alt text

Add options in braces after gnuplot:

```gnuplot {caption="Figure 1: Trigonometric functions" alt="Sine and cosine curves"}
plot sin(x), cos(x)
```

Put each value in quotes. Values are plain text, not Markdown. If an option is misspelled, it's ignored and the plot still appears.

Viewing the code

• Reading view: hover over a plot and select the </> button just above it to see the code. Select it again to see the plot. Obsidian remembers which plots you switched, even after a restart. Show every plot in this note in the command palette switches them all back.
• Live Preview: select Obsidian's own Edit this block button, just as for a Mermaid diagram.

Dark and light themes

Plots follow your theme. In a dark theme, the white background disappears, axes and text take your theme's text colour, and every default line colour stays easy to tell apart. In a light theme, plots appear on a white card with their exact colours.

To always show the exact colours on a white card, turn off Follow dark themes in the plugin's settings.

Settings

Commands

When something goes wrong

• A mistake in the commands: gnuplot's error and its line and column within the block appear in place of the plot. Text written with print, and gnuplot's warnings, appear above the plot.
• "Took longer than…": the plot hit the Render time limit. Simplify it, or raise the limit in settings, then use Refresh data.
• Size limits: a block may hold up to 64,000 characters. Each data file may be up to 1 MB, and a plot may use up to 16 files and 4 MB of data in all.

Privacy

Plots are drawn on your device, inside Obsidian. The plugin doesn't connect to the internet and doesn't collect any data. It reads only the data files your plots name, and only from your vault, through Obsidian. It never writes files.

Credits

Plots are drawn by gnuplot. The licenses of the software built into this plugin are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Released under the MIT License. To build or change the plugin, see DEVELOPMENT.md.