#1321 epspdflatex minus symbol on axis numeric labels

[Ryo]

Hi,

This is just a wish, not a bug report. It would be nice if the numeric labels on axes used minus symbols for negative numbers with the epslatex driver.

Currently, I edit the LaTeX file produced by the driver and to replace, say, "-600" to "$-$600". It would be nice if this were done by the driver.

Regards,
Ryo

[Bastian Märkisch]

The correct tracker for this would have been "Feature Requests". But you can already easily achieve what you want with

set format x "$%g$"
set format y "$%g$"

The current development version includes the math mode marks $$ already in the default format for LaTeX terminals.

[Ryo]

The correct tracker for this would have been "Feature Requests".
But you can already easily achieve what you want with

set format x "$%g$"
set format y "$%g$"

Thank you for the solution!!

The following is a little discussion about this solution,
which might be useful for some people in the future.

In addition to the "$%g$" setting, I've found that
switching to a sans-serif math font gives a better result:

set terminal epslatex . . . font "phv,12" \
header "\usepackage{newtxmath}"

For numeric axis labels, a sans-serif font is usually better
(and that's why most plotting programs use a Helvetica-like font)
and LaTeX's default math font isn't quite suitable for axis numeric
labels. For that reason, I initially didn't like the "$%g$" solution,
which results in "$-600$" rather than "$-$600". (Note that I switch
to a san-serif font, phv, but math environments use a different
font.)

So, changing the math font combined with "$%g$" is probably the
best solution so far.

Ryo