The plottools package contains routines that can generate basic graphical objects for use in plot structures. You can generate and alter plot structures using the commands in this package. You can also examine the data in a plot structure with the plottools:-getdata command. The result of a plottools command is usually a plot object, which must be displayed using the plots:-display command.

Each command in the plottools package can be accessed by using either the long form or the short form of the command name in the command calling sequence.

The commands to generate plot structures are:

The commands to alter or examine plot structures are:

The commands for data exchange between plot structures and geometric data formats are:

To display the help page for a particular plottools command, see Getting Help with a Command in a Package.

In addition to exporting plots to an external graphics format using the plottools:-exportplot command, you can use the export tools from the Standard GUI.

Note: When applying a command that alters the plot structure to a plot containing text, only the $\mathrm{position}$ of the text is transformed, not the actual characters.

Most of the plottools commands that create plot objects accept additional options, such as color="Blue".  These options are described on the plot/options and plot3d/options help pages, for 2-D and 3-D plots respectively.

Because most plottools commands produce a single plot object such as a curve rather than a complete plot, the options accepted are limited to those applicable to the object.  Examples are color, linestyle and transparency.  Options that affect an entire plot, such as axes or title, are ignored.

To create a complete plot and provide options for that plot, use the plots:-display command.  For example, plots:-display(p, axes=boxed), where p is the result of a plottools call, will put plot object p into a plot with boxed axes.

Some plottools commands return a sequence of two or more plot objects. Again, use the plots:-display command to group these objects together in a single plot if you wish to treat them as a single entity.