General Plot Properties

Plot Area Tab

You can use the Plot Area tab (Figure 9.20) to set attributes of the plot area.

Figure 9.20: The Plot Area Tab

The Plot Area tab contains the following UI controls:

Left: specifies the distance between the left edge of the plot area and the minimum value of the visible axis range for the X axis. The distance is specified as a fraction of the plot area’s width. The value must be in the range 0 to 0.8.
Right: specifies the distance between the right edge of the plot area and the maximum value of the visible axis range for the X axis. The distance is specified as a fraction of the plot area’s width. The value must be in the range 0 to 0.8.
Top: specifies the distance between the top edge of the plot area and the maximum value of the visible axis range for the Y axis. The distance is specified as a fraction of the plot area’s height. The value must be in the range 0 to 0.8.
Bottom: specifies the distance between the bottom edge of the plot area and the minimum value of the visible axis range for the Y axis. The distance is specified as a fraction of the plot area’s height. The value must be in the range 0 to 0.8.
Background: specifies the background color of the plot area.
Show plot frame: specifies whether the plot area’s frame is displayed.

Note: Because the plot area has margins, the edges of the plot area do not correspond to the minimum and maximum values of the axis. Let $x_ L$ and $x_ R$ be the minimum and maximum values of the horizontal axis. Let $m_ L$ and $m_ R$ be the left and right margin fractions.

Define $s = (x_ R-x_ L)/(1-m_ L-m_ R)$ . Then the left edge of the plot area is located at $x_ L - s m_ L$ , and the right edge of the plot area is located at $x_ R + s m_ R$ .

For example, if $x_ L=0$ , $x_ R=1$ , $m_ L=1/20$ , and $m_ R=1/10$ , then $s = 20/17$ . The left edge of the plot area is located at $-1/17 \approx -0.0588$ , while the right edge is located at $19/17 \approx 1.118$ .