Introducing plotting

Let’s begin by discussing and briefly assessing the available options for plotting, both in the commercial software market and the open source community.

Several commercial software options are available, such as Mathematica and Matlab, as well as free and open source software such as GNU Octave, R, GNUplot, and Python with Matplotlib, for example. Any of these programs can be used to generate plots and export them as images for inclusion in your LaTeX document. However, there are some drawbacks to using third-party software:

• You need to install and maintain another software installation, you may have to pay for installation and updates, and you will be dependent on the software’s functionality on a specific computer.
• Imported images may appear blurry or pixelated if exported in bitmap formats such as PNG or JPG. If possible, export them as PDF images to obtain a scalable image.
• Font types and the sizes of labels and numbers may...