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One of the fun tricks known to Mathematica users is that the default colors for Mathematica plots (as of v12) can be accessed by the ColorData[97] color scheme. So ColorData[97][1] is a light blue, ColorData[97][2] is an orange-yellow, etc. I have found this immensely useful when creating separate plots and then combining them into a single graphic.

ListPlot uses this same color scheme but also has a set of different shapes it uses for each data series, as seen below:

enter image description here

Is there a function similar to ColorData[97] that can be called to yield a filled circle given an argument of 1, a filled square given an argument of 2, a filled diamond given an argument of 3, and so forth?

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    $\begingroup$ Have you seen System`Private`$PlotMarkers already? $\endgroup$
    – J. M.'s missing motivation ♦
    Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 17:55
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    $\begingroup$ Similarly, to get the Graphics version: Charting`CommonDump`GraphicsPlotMarkers[]. $\endgroup$
    – Domen
    Commented Jul 21, 2022 at 18:37

1 Answer 1

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To summarize comments by Domen and me: Graphics`PlotMarkers[] (which is aliased by System`Private`$PlotMarkers) gives glyph versions of the default markers, while Charting`CommonDump`GraphicsPlotMarkers[] gives the Graphics[] version of the default markers.

In particular, consider the following:

rr = RandomReal[1, 7];
ListPlot[Outer[Plus, Range[0, 9], rr], PlotMarkers -> Automatic] === 
ListPlot[Outer[Plus, Range[0, 9], rr],
         PlotMarkers -> Charting`CommonDump`GraphicsPlotMarkers[]]
   True
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    $\begingroup$ I always feel vaguely sinful accessing one of those functions involving a left apostrophe. (What are those called, anyhow?) $\endgroup$
    – Michael Seifert
    Commented Jul 22, 2022 at 19:53
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    $\begingroup$ We just refer to them as undocumented, for convenience. ;) $\endgroup$
    – J. M.'s missing motivation ♦
    Commented Jul 22, 2022 at 20:07

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