Binary versions of Gnuplot for macOS

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Binary versions of Gnuplot for macOS.

One-step installation for ARM-based Macs: Download Gnuplot 6.0.2 and install. No additional libraries needed.

One-step installation for Intel-based Macs: Coming soon! Meanwhile please download Gnuplot 5.4.1 below. Note that this also requires the installation of XQuartz.


Note for users of the "png" terminal: On some versions of OS X, such as Catalina, the "Arial" font has been moved and you will receive an error message when you do "set terminal png". To fix this, issue the following command before starting gnuplot:

export GDFONTPATH=/Library/Fonts:/Library/Fonts/Microsoft:/System/Library/Fonts:/System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental

Details:

  • The version for ARM processors is compiled on macOS 15.2 (Sequoia) but was confirmed to work on older macOS versions as well, including macOS 11.2.3 (Big Sur)
  • Older versions below all require the X11 library and hence are not recommended. Gnuplot versions 5.4.1 and 5.4.0 was compiled on OS X 10.15.6 (Catalina) and Gnuplot versions up to 5.2.8 were compiled on OS X 10.11.6 (El Capitan) and were confirmed to work also on macOS 10.13 (High Sierra), 10.14 (Mojave), and 10.15 (Catalina).
  • Prior to installing any of the older versions, you MUST install X11/XQuartz. Do not forget to reboot your computer after the installation, or the X11 terminal within Gnuplot will not work.
  • Note for users of the "png" terminal: On some versions of OS X, such as Catalina, the "Arial" font has been moved and you will receive an error message when you do "set terminal png". To fix this, issue the following command before starting gnuplot: export GDFONTPATH=/Library/Fonts:/Library/Fonts/Microsoft:/System/Library/Fonts:/System/Library/Fonts/Supplemental
  • All versions provided here include the GNU Readline library.
  • In addition to the standard terminals, the PDF terminal is included as well, which uses the PDFLlib Lite library. To my understanding, this link to the source code satisfies the PDFlib Lite license requirements. Note: you do NOT need to download this library to use the gnuplot packages below.
  • In version 5.2.5 and up, I have also included the GIF, JPEG and PNG terminals. All libraries needed are included; please let me know if you encounter difficulties.
  • Simply download the package from one of the links below and install. You can then invoke gnuplot from a terminal window via /usr/local/bin/gnuplot
  • Please report download problems.
  • Current version (recommended):
    • 5.4.1 (January 20, 2025)
  • Older versions (versions prior to 5.2.5 do not include the PNG, JPEG and GIF terminals)
  • Information for the technically inclined: to facilitate installation and improve portability, the gnuplot binary was statically linked to the readline, gd, png16, freetype, fontconfig, and PDFlib-lite libraries.
  • If you receive an error message "dyld: Library not loaded: /opt/X11/lib/libfontconfig.1.dylib", please make sure you have installed the most recent version of X11/XQuartz.


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