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I use a both latex and M$ Word for my technical reports, depending on the person I have to deliver it.

To generate my plot, I love using the tikz2pdf script given by Hans Meine but as far as it produce pdf, there is no interactive viewer, such as matplotlib viewer, to zoom in, move curve and so on to analyze my results before making a picture. The point is not to make up the graph, but be able to go deep in the analysis by zooming or moving with the mouse.

So I start using matplotlib to generate plot, in order to have the same tool to watch and analyze results and to produce pictures. The problem is that I didn't find a way to execute matplotlib from latex, such as gnuplot.

In an other hand, I don't like the gnuplot viewer to analyze my results, it is not very user-friendly.

So, my questions are :

  • Is there a way to use tikz and have interactive viewer (wich interact with mouse action) ?
  • Is there a way to manage matplotlib from latex ?
  • Is there another viewer, more user-friendly to watch and analyze results ?
  • Maybe other ideas ?
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Use QTikZ or (KTikZ on Linux) for it by modifying the preamble accordingly to include, say, amsmath, pgfplots options etc. – percusse Sep 26 '12 at 10:39
@percusse Thanks but this is not the point. I edit my question to be more explicit. – Sigmun Sep 26 '12 at 13:21
But now this is off-topic regarding the absence of TeX part don't you agree? – percusse Sep 26 '12 at 13:29
I'm not sure I understand your question correctly, but couldn't you just use a regular LaTeX IDE, write your TikZ code using the standalone class, compile, and inspect the PDF in the internal viewer (which allows you to zoom and pan using the mouse)? – Jake Sep 26 '12 at 13:38
@percusse This is related to TeX as far as I need a tool TeX-compatible – Sigmun Sep 26 '12 at 14:16
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2 Answers

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For your second question: You can use matplotlib from within LaTeX using the PythonTeX package. Since PythonTeX requires a cycle of running LaTeX, running a Python script, and then running LaTeX again, it will be a little slower than using Python directly if you need to do a lot of interactive work with your plot. But you could always develop the plot code in pure Python, and then copy it into a TeX document once you're happy with it and are ready to create the final plot for the report.

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I will try it, it seems to be what I am looking for... or not so far ! – Sigmun Sep 29 '12 at 13:17
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For your first question:

  1. Use Tikzedt or
  2. Qtikz/ktikz depending on windows/linux or
  3. Tikzit
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Thanks for sharing your point of view. I answer by editing my question. The point is to be able to use mouse actions to zoom in/out, move plot... I am not looking for something which help me to make nice plot, what tikz2pdf to very well. – Sigmun Sep 26 '12 at 13:12

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