# How have other v0.6 users dealt with all the broken Plotting libraries?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [September 24, 2018, 12:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403 "2018-09-24T00:51:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![djsegal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/djsegal/32/13752_2.png) [@djsegal](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/djsegal)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 12:51am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403/1 "2018-09-24T00:51:25Z")

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It seems like:

- `GR` makes [tiny plots](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-jl-tiny-plots-in-jupyter-notebook/14770)
- `PyPlot` makes [grainy plots](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plots-how-to-save-figure-to-the-file-with-high-resolution-dpi-300/4570)
- `PlotlyJS` [doesn’t work](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plotly-not-working-on-macos/14368/2) at all (for `v0.6`)
- `PGFPlots` takes a minute to make a single plot

I just want to plot something and don’t have time to port an entire project to `v0.7`

How have other people dealt with these issues?

Is there anything that works?

// i’ve tried pinning this, that and the other thing, but it seems like nothing works ☹

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**Author:** ![kristoffer.carlsson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kristoffer.carlsson/32/22_2.png) [@kristoffer.carlsson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kristoffer.carlsson)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 12:56am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403/2 "2018-09-24T00:56:21Z")

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PGFPlotsX works fine for me.

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**Author:** ![djsegal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/djsegal/32/13752_2.png) [@djsegal](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/djsegal)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 12:57am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403/3 "2018-09-24T00:57:07Z")

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Is it a lot faster than PGFPlots.jl?

I thought svg’s by nature took a while to make?

* * *

**edit:** If it’s fast, will definitely do it. Just already had a bunch of plotting suites written for Plots.jl

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**Author:** ![kristoffer.carlsson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kristoffer.carlsson/32/22_2.png) [@kristoffer.carlsson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kristoffer.carlsson)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 1:00am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403/4 "2018-09-24T01:00:43Z")

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Well, it depends what is slow with PGFPlots.jl (julia side or rendering side).  
PGFPlots in general is not very fast so if your requirement is for the plotting backend itself to be fast, it might not be what you are looking for.

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**Author:** ![djsegal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/djsegal/32/13752_2.png) [@djsegal](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/djsegal)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 1:01am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403/5 "2018-09-24T01:01:33Z")

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This is to be used with Interact.jl on a jupyter notebook hosted on the internet

A delay of 5 seconds when a user presses a button is probably unacceptable 😕

* * *

Is there really no way to have Plots.jl work anymore in `v0.6`?

**edit:** closest I could get (based on one of the linked posts) is

- `scatter(rand(10),rand(10), size=(500,300), html_output_format=:png, dpi=250)`

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**Author:** ![stevengj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stevengj/32/71_2.png) [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 2:15am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403/6 "2018-09-24T02:15:22Z")

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> [@djsegal](#):
>
> `PyPlot` makes grainy plots

Not sure what you are referring to here — PyPlot has all of Matplotlib’s output abilities, which means you can output vector graphics (SVG, PDF, etcetera) and any resolution that you need.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![djsegal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/djsegal/32/13752_2.png) [@djsegal](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/djsegal)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 2:39am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403/7 "2018-09-24T02:39:49Z")

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For PyPlot, when you try to increase the dpi, you end up with something like this:

 ![02%20PM](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/5/3/539e9cc47c7441ecb63fabd8266373ac7031f752.jpeg)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![djsegal](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/djsegal/32/13752_2.png) [@djsegal](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/djsegal)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 3:57am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403/8 "2018-09-24T03:57:37Z")

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Wrapping this up. It seems like `gr()` is the best choice for `v0.6` at this time.

A dpi of `450` seems to give the correct scaling in jupyter (as what it used to be)

i.e.

```julia
plot!(dpi=450)

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stevengj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stevengj/32/71_2.png) [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 11:27am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403/9 "2018-09-24T11:27:19Z")

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> [@djsegal](#):
>
> For PyPlot, when you try to increase the dpi, you end up with something like this:

I can’t reproduce with PyPlot.jl. Using `figure(dpi=600)` when plotting some random data, looks good to me, and `savefig("foo.pdf")` produces vector graphics that also look good.

This should not be surprising, since Matplotlib is extremely widely used and hence is pretty solid.

I have no idea about the Plots.jl interface to PyPlot, which I don’t use, but you could try to file an issue with a minimal working example.

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**Author:** ![tobias.knopp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tobias.knopp/32/7551_2.png) [@tobias.knopp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/tobias.knopp)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2018, 12:41pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-have-other-v0-6-users-dealt-with-all-the-broken-plotting-libraries/15403/10 "2018-09-24T12:41:21Z")

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This seems to be a specific issue with Plots.jl and not with the individual plotting packages. I use PyPlot on both 0.6 and 0.7/1.0 and have not seen that issue so far.