plot issues

[Ben Abbott]

On Jun 5, 2009, at 5:45 AM, Petr Mikulik wrote:

>>> issues. pdfcairo and pngcairo are automatically compiled in if the  
>>> system
>>> has cairo library (available as a package for most linux  
>>> distributions, for
>>> example).
>>>
>>> I think that the cairo terminals handle UTF-8 text correctly.
>>>
>>> I gave cc: to gnuplot list so that somebody can explain the  
>>> difference in
>>> more details.
>>
>> Are there any license problems with the plain png terminal, or is  
>> it just the
>> pdf?
>
> png is fine, it uses gd library
>
>> Presently, when the pdf terminal is specified, the print() function  
>> checks
>> with gnuplot to determine if the "pdf" terminal is supported. If  
>> not, or
>> unknown, print() checks for the presence of ghostscript. If  
>> present, the ps
>> terminal is used to produce a ps-file and then ghostscript is used  
>> to convert
>> to pdf.
>
> I wonder whether "set term pdf" is used if "set term" shows  
> "pdfcairo" but
> not "pdf"?

I'm confused by your question. Do you suggest that "pdfcairo" be used  
in the event that "pdf" is not present". Personally, I like the  
ghostscript solution, but these are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

In any event, please clarify.

Ben