# Plotting in new window: what exactly is a backend? How to use?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plotting-in-new-window-what-exactly-is-a-backend-how-to-use/10075>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Tags:** plotting\
**Created:** [March 30, 2018, 4:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plotting-in-new-window-what-exactly-is-a-backend-how-to-use/10075 "2018-03-30T16:01:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![leoll2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/22d042/32.png) [@leoll2](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/leoll2)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2018, 4:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plotting-in-new-window-what-exactly-is-a-backend-how-to-use/10075/1 "2018-03-30T16:01:59Z")

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I just recently started using Julia to plot graphs. I’m currently working in Jupyter (IJulia), which is advertised as a “graphical backend”. Reading a bit of documentation, I learned that a “backend” is more or less the blackboard where you (or applications) put your drawings (lines, shapes, graphs,…).  
Let’s say I’m using PyPlot in my program. As far as I understand, when I call plot() in my code, it invokes a function in matplotlib (which is a python library), which at last draws the picture in the backend.  
So, while Jupyter already has a backend, on the other hand I have to manually install and configure a backend if I want to use plot() in REPL and show the graph in a new window.  
Right now, I don’t think I have a backend, because I get this warning in REPL, even though I’ve installed JuliaPro (which is supposed to include everything I need):

```julia
julia> using PyPlot
WARNING: No working GUI backend found for matplotlib

```

Is it so? Am I missing that component?  
Then the question is: what exactly should I do? All the guides I find are related to Python and Matlab, not sure if they’re also valid for Julia.  
They often say that there are multiple options (backends) available, but eventually fail to provide a detailed step-by-step tutorial for at least one of them. Which one would you suggest for my needs?  
To be clear, I just want to be able to write plot() in REPL and see the output in a new window, pretty much like in matlab.  
If it matters, I’m currently using Windows.

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**Author:** ![Tero\_Frondelius](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tero_frondelius/32/7629_2.png) [@Tero\_Frondelius](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tero_Frondelius)\
**Post date:** [March 30, 2018, 9:17pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/plotting-in-new-window-what-exactly-is-a-backend-how-to-use/10075/2 "2018-03-30T21:17:28Z")

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Check here, how to install PyPlot: [https://github.com/JuliaPy/PyPlot.jl/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/JuliaPy/PyPlot.jl/blob/master/README.md)