Without dealing with the subtlety of your file, you can generally force lat/lon axis labels with the xlab/ylab commands: contour/set/... var ppl xlab,(i5,''lon'') ! note two single quotes around lat ppl ylab,(i5,''lat'') ! again two single quotes ppl contour If longitudes in the file are given as positive west, use: ppl xlab,(i5,''lonw'') Billy K