# How to use ListAnimate to show a series of ListPlots?

It's possible that this may be tagged as a duplicate question, but I have been searching this site and the rest of the internet for at least 2 hours looking for an answer to no avail.

I have a series of lists of 200 lines of x and y values (let's call them DataList1, DataList2, etc.) For example:

DataList1=[{150, 15745.7}, {152, 15571.2}, {154, 15401.}, {156, 15253.2}]


I used ListPlot on each individual list of x and y values which gives me a very nice graph (Graph1, Graph2, etc.) For example:

Graph1 = ListPlot[DataList1, PlotRange -> All, PlotStyle -> {RGBColor[1, 0, 0]}]


After creating each graph (and assigning a variable name to each graph) I would now like to use list animate to show one graph, then the next one, and so on. However, if I use the code:

ListAnimate[Graph1, Graph2, Graph3]


it does not create the animation box, it only shows a list of each plot as a thumbnail.

There are a total of 19 Graphs / Lists that are to be included in the series.

What am I doing wrong?????

Thank you in advance for any help!

• How about ListAnimate@List[Graph1,Graph2, ...]? – Myridium Sep 14 '16 at 3:31
• It's a good idea to look at the documentation first, before googling. The syntax shown there is ListAnimate[{expr1, expr2, ...}] and not ListAnimate[expr1, expr2, ...]. Those brackets are very very important. Pay attention to them. For example, your question above contains DataList1=[{150, 15745.7}, ..., which is not valid syntax and won't evaluate in Mathematica, all because of wrong use of brackets. – Szabolcs Sep 14 '16 at 12:42
• It was indeed the missing brackets around my expressions. Thank you so much! – Lindsay Lesh Sep 15 '16 at 18:19

Since you did not give the data, I generate it:

lst = Table[Table[{x, x^a}, {x, 0, 10, 1}], {a, 0.1, 1, 0.1}];


Now, this is the list of plots:

table = ListPlot[#, PlotRange -> {0, 10},PlotStyle -> {RGBColor[1, 0, 0]}] & /@ lst;


You can evaluate it and have a look at the results. This makes the animation:

ListAnimate[table]


Try it. The result looks as follows:

I attract your attention to the requirement that the argument of the ListAnimate must be itself a List, as it is in my example and in the comment of Myridium.

On the other hand, if you give only a sequence of plots as the arguments of the ListAnimate(like this):

ListAnimate[table[[1]], table[[2]], table[[3]], table[[4]]]


Mma returns this

which is what you, probably, observed. The advise is, therefore to enter curly braces:

ListAnimate[{Graph1, Graph2, Graph3}]


Have fun!

• Thank you!! That gives me a good template for the future! – Lindsay Lesh Sep 15 '16 at 18:20