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Creating Professional Graphs with Veusz ​

Veusz is a free, open-source plotting software that lets you create publication-quality scientific graphs — perfect for simulation reports, research papers, or technical documentation. It’s simple, powerful, and gives you precise control over every detail — from line styles and colors to fonts and figure sizes.

This page will guide you on how to get started, explore the tutorials inside Veusz, and then create your own clean, professional-looking plots.

Step 1 — Explore the Built-in Tutorial ​

Once you’ve installed Veusz, the first thing you should do is go through the official tutorial that comes with the software.

  1. Open the Veusz application.

  2. Go to the menu bar → Help → Tutorial.

  3. Follow the walkthrough carefully — it introduces all the basics:

    • How to import data
    • How to plot line graphs, scatter plots, and histograms
    • How to customize axes, labels, and styles

Spend some time exploring it — this will give you a good feel for how Veusz organizes data and plots.

Tip: The built-in tutorial is interactive, so you can experiment while following along.

After you've completed the built-in tutorial, watch this video guide on creating professional graphs in Veusz:

This video shows how to:

  • Adjust fonts and color schemes for reports and journals
  • Format axes and gridlines consistently
  • Export high-resolution figures for use in LaTeX or reports
  • Combine multiple plots into one clean figure panel

It’s short but extremely helpful — you’ll see exactly how to take your graphs from basic to publication-ready.

Step 3 — Create Your Own Graph ​

Now it’s your turn to try it out.

You can either:

  • Use any simulation or experimental dataset you already have, or
  • Generate random data using Python and save it as a .csv or .txt file.

Example Python script to create sample data:

python
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd

x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y = np.sin(x) + 0.1 * np.random.randn(100)

data = pd.DataFrame({'X': x, 'Y': y})
data.to_csv('sample_data.csv', index=False)

Then, open Veusz and:

  1. Import your sample_data.csv file.
  2. Add a line plot (Plot → Add → Line).
  3. Customize your graph — title, labels, line width, colors, font sizes, etc.
  4. Export your final figure as a PDF or SVG (for LaTeX reports).

Take your time to make it look clean, readable, and professional.

Notes ​

  • Always use vector formats (PDF/SVG) for reports — they scale perfectly and keep text sharp.
  • Use consistent font sizes (8–10 pt for labels, 12–14 pt for titles).
  • Avoid flashy colors — stick to simple, accessible palettes.
  • Align axis labels and gridlines neatly.
  • You can save your Veusz template to reuse it for future graphs, ensuring consistency across all your figures.

Summary ​

  • Start by exploring the built-in Veusz tutorial under Help → Tutorial.
  • Watch the reference video: Creating Publication Graphs in Veusz.
  • Then, create your own graph — either from real data or Python-generated sample data.

Once you get familiar, you’ll find Veusz to be one of the easiest ways to produce clean, consistent, and professional-quality figures for your reports and publications.