Installing Gnuplot on Windows

Linda Barton
March 8, 2009

Gnuplot is a freeware package for plotting data and fitting functions. Implementing gnuplot on a Windows PC is straightforward. To get started, go to

www.gnuplot.info

• Choose the download for gnuplot 4.2.4.
• Download the file gp424win32.zip
• Create a folder named gnuplot directly under C:\
• extract all of the zip file into that folder
• Use Explorer to go to C:\gnuplot, and find the bin subdirectory. You will see wgnuplot.exe in that folder.
• Create a desktop shortcut to this executable.

If you read the README or INSTALL instructions, you will be bewildered by a lot of stuff that is generally not necessary to worry about. Try just unzipping the files and running the executable.

For linear fitting,

http://t16web.lanl.gov/Kawano/gnuplot/intro/plotfunc-e.html

is a useful starting point.