Coloring the axes

We showed back in Chapter 1, Plotting Curves, Boxes, Points, and more, how to use two different y-axes when plotting two functions or datasets that have dissimilar ranges. We can make it easier to see which curve goes with which axis by using color.

In the following figure, two curves are colored (shaded in print) to match corresponding colors on the vertical axes with which they are associated. The axis labels are colored to match, as well. This makes it easy to match the curves with their y-axes without having to use arrows or legends.

How to do it…

The following script created the previous figure:

set multi
set tmargin at screen .8
set rmargin at screen .8
set lmargin at screen .2
set bmargin at screen .2
unset key
set tics nomirror
set xrange [0:5]
set border 8
set border lt 4
set y2tics 0,25,150
unset ytics
set y2label "exp(x)" textcolor lt 4
plot exp(x) axis x1y2 lt 4
set border 7
set border lt -1
set ylabel "1/x" textcolor lt -1
unset y2label
set ytics 0,1,5
set tics...