with the shell the typical way to launch ipython with matplotlib integration is by adding the -pylab flag (two dashesipython --pylab this will cause several things to happen first ipython will launch with the default gui backend integration enabled so that matplotlib plot windows can be created with no issues secondlymost of numpy and matplotlib will be imported into the top level interactive namespace to produce an interactive computing environment reminiscent of matlab and other domain-specific scientific computing environments it' possible to do this setup by hand by using %guitoo (try running %guito find out howfigure - pylab modeipython with matplotlib windows ipython basics www it-ebooks info