How to make Gnuplot use the "unicode minus" sign for negative numbers

Question

Gnuplot uses the hyphen-minus sign (U+002D) when it prints negative numbers (e.g., tick labels). I would like to make Gnuplot use the unicode minus sign (U+2212).

Usually, I have relied on one of the following workarounds:

1. Explicitly set the label of each tick mark using set xtics (-0.05 "−0.05", ...);
2. Export the plot using a LaTeX driver (e.g., epslatex) and enclose the number within $$ (e.g., set format x "$%.2f$").

However, none of the above solution appeals me. Is there any way to make Gnuplot automatically use the correct typographical convention for negative numbers?

Answer 1

Since version 5.0.5 gnuplot has a set minussign command. When this is set, the gprintf function, which is also used to set the tics labels, uses typographic minus signs (U+2212) instead of a hyphen:

set encoding utf8
set minussign
plot x