Module 06 of 1260 min readIntermediate

Graphing in Stata

twoway line, scatter, bar, histogram, kdensity, marginsplot. Publication-quality charts from the command line.

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Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

01Build line, scatter, bar, histogram, and kdensity plots with twoway and graph commands
02Add titles, labels, legends, and notes using twoway options
03Combine plots with twoway (g1) (g2) and graph combine for multi-panel figures
04Export publication-quality figures to PNG, PDF, and Stata's editable .gph format

Stata graphs are command-driven, parametric, and publication-quality with a small amount of work. The base command is twoway; line, scatter, bar, hist are the workhorses.

twoway line and scatter

stata

twoway line lending_rate month
twoway scatter lending_rate deposit_rate

* Multiple series
twoway (line lending_rate month) (line deposit_rate month)

Adding labels and titles

stata

twoway (line lending_rate month) (line deposit_rate month), ///
    title("Kenyan commercial bank rates") ///
    ytitle("Rate (%)") xtitle("Month") ///
    legend(label(1 "Lending") label(2 "Deposit"))

histogram and kdensity

stata

histogram lending_rate, frequency
histogram lending_rate, normal      // overlay normal density
kdensity lending_rate

bar and graph bar

stata

graph bar (mean) lending_rate, over(year)
graph bar (mean) lending_rate (mean) deposit_rate, over(year)

Saving graphs

stata

graph export figure1.png, replace
graph export figure1.pdf, replace
graph save figure1.gph, replace      // Stata's native format, can re-edit later

marginsplot — visualising regression effects

stata

regress lending_rate deposit_rate i.year
margins year
marginsplot, recast(line)      // shows year fixed effects

Triple-slash is the line-continuation

Stata commands are one line by default. To split across lines for readability, use /// at the end of each line. Easy to forget; very useful.

Exercise

Plot a line graph of lending_rate against month.

Key takeaways

◆twoway is the foundation: twoway line, twoway scatter, twoway connected, etc.
◆Use /// for line continuation in long commands — readability matters in shared do-files
◆graph export figure.png handles output; graph save preserves an editable .gph file
◆marginsplot is the bridge from regression to publication-ready coefficient visualisation