Properly squish a pgfplot bar chart

Question

I am trying to make a bar chart with the following lengthy data:

Character   X-Position  Probability
space   1   0.18211
e   2   0.10083
t   3   0.07298
h   4   0.06721
a   5   0.05862
o   6   0.05435
n   7   0.04792
i   8   0.0421
s   9   0.04067
d   10  0.03916
r   11  0.03827
l   12  0.02508
f   13  0.01982
m   14  0.01964
u   15  0.01781
w   16  0.01676
p   17  0.0163
comma   18  0.01394
c   19  0.01391
y   20  0.01309
1   21  0.01165
g   22  0.0111
b   23  0.01075
v   24  0.00551
N   25  0.00544
:   26  0.00537
I   27  0.00493
.   28  0.00491
k   29  0.00488
2   30  0.00423
A   31  0.00395
;   32  0.00357
L   33  0.00304
3   34  0.00246
G   35  0.00166
4   36  0.00163
5   37  0.00143
7   38  0.00138
8   39  0.00128
6   40  0.00122
0   41  0.0011
9   42  0.00102
J   43  0.00072
S   44  0.00059
B   45  0.00058
-   46  0.00052
j   47  0.00047
x   48  0.00046
T   49  0.0004
W   50  0.00038
?   51  0.00037
H   52  0.00029
F   53  0.00028
O   54  0.00027
Y   55  0.00022
M   56  0.0002
R   57  0.00019
C   58  0.00018
q   59  0.00017
!   60  0.00013
E   61  0.00011
Z   62  0.00011
z   63  0.00009
'   64  0.00004
D   65  0.00004
K   66  0.00004
P   67  0.00003
(   68  0.00002
)   69  0.00002
U   70  0.00001

I put that data in a file called "my.dat", and made my Latex file in the same directory:

\documentclass[letterpaper]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
    ybar,
    xlabel=Character, ylabel=Probability
    xtick=data,
    xticklabels from table={my.dat}{Character}
]
\addplot table [
    x=X-Position,
    y=Probability
] {my.dat};

\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

The result is awful:

With Excel I know how to make the chart look decent. The letters come out a bit squished, so I stretch the chart:

But notice how it tried on its own to make the bars as thin as possible to fit it all in the chart. How do I make pgfplots try harder to make everything fit?

Alternatively, it would be nice to know if there were a way to make a bar chart wrap itself, as in cut into portions and each displayed next to/on top of the other.

Has anyone who can help had experience with pgfplots trying to graph lots of data?

Answer 1

You can make it fit in the given space, but then the x tick labels are tiny

Code 1

\begin{axis}
[   ybar,
  xlabel=Character,
  ylabel=Probability,
  xtick=data,
  xticklabels from table={my.dat}{Character},
  bar width=2pt,
  width=0.95*\textwidth,
  x tick label style={font=\tiny,align=right,rotate=90},
  enlarge x limits=0.01,
  enlarge y limits=0.01,
]
\addplot table
[   x=X-Position,
  y=Probability
] 
{my.dat};
\end{axis}

Result 1

---

But questions remain:

• do you have to do this on letter paper?
• do the margins need to be this big?
• wouldn't a logarhitmic plot be better, as the right side of the diagram is basically empty?

For comparison:

Code 2

\usepackage[margin=0.6in]{geometry}

...

\begin{semilogyaxis}
  ybar,
  xlabel=Character,
  ylabel=Probability,
  xtick=data,
  xticklabels from table={my.dat}{Character},
  bar width=5pt,
  width=0.95*\textwidth,
  x tick label style={font=\footnotesize,align=right,rotate=90},
  enlarge x limits=0.01,
  enlarge y limits=0.01,
]
\addplot table
[   x=X-Position,
  y=Probability
] 
{my.dat};
\end{semilogyaxis}

Result 2

---

As suggested by Jake, a scatter plot is probably better that a bar plot for this case:

Code 3

\begin{semilogyaxis}
[   scatter,
    scatter src=y,
    only marks,
  xlabel=Character,
  ylabel=Probability,
  xtick=data,
  xticklabels from table={my.dat}{Character},
  bar width=5pt,
  width=0.95*\textwidth,
  x tick label style={font=\footnotesize,align=right,rotate=90},
  enlarge x limits=0.01,
  enlarge y limits=0.02,
  grid=major,
  colormap={portal}{rgb255(0cm)=(255,128,0); rgb255(1cm)=(0,255,255)},
  colormap name=portal,
]
\addplot table
[   x=X-Position,
  y=Probability
] 
{my.dat};
\end{semilogyaxis}

Result 3