export_fig

Exports figures nicely to a number of vector & bitmap formats.

Description

This function saves a figure or single axes to one or more vector and/or bitmap file formats, and/or outputs a rasterized version to the workspace, with the following properties:
   - Figure/axes reproduced as it appears on screen
   - Cropped borders
   - Embedded fonts (vector formats)
   - Improved line and grid line styles (vector formats)
   - Anti-aliased graphics (bitmap formats)
   - Transparent background supported (pdf, eps, png)
   - Semi-transparent patch objects supported (png only)
   - CMYK output optional (pdf, eps, tiff)
   - Append to file (pdf only)
   - Vector formats: pdf, eps
   - Bitmap formats: png, tif, jpg, bmp, export to workspace

This function is especially suited to exporting figures for use in publications and presentations, because of the high quality and portability of media produced.

Note that the background color and figure dimensions are reproduced (the latter approximately, and ignoring cropping & magnification) in the output file. For transparent background (and semi-transparent patch objects), set the figure (and axes) 'Color' property to 'none'; pdf, eps and png are the only file formats to support a transparent background, whilst the png format alone supports transparency of patch objects.

When exporting to vector format (pdf & eps), this function requires that ghostscript is installed on your system. You can download this from:
   http://www.ghostscript.com
When exporting to eps it additionally requires pdftops, from the Xpdf suite of functions. You can download this from:
   http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf

When reporting bugs, please use the 'Contact Author' link on my Author page, rather than pasting the error into the comments - I will respond quicker, especially if I can email you back.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge the following in the creation of this submission:
savefig, Fix dashed and dotted lines in EPS export, FIXPSLINESTYLE, Myaa - My Anti-Alias for Matlab, print_pdf, print2im, print_eps, fix_lines
This submission has inspired the following:
Matlab Icon for Linux (with Transparency)

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7.5 (R2007b)
• Other requirements: Ghostscript, Xpdf
• Other Files: eps2pdf.m, ; export_fig.m, ; fix_lines.m, ; license.txt, ; pdf2eps.m, ; print2array.m, ; print2eps.m, ; private/ghostscript.m, ; private/pdftops.m

[danny]

Hello! How can I use your program to export a MATLAB graph to .eps or .pdf format with size changes ?

Thank you,
dan

[Matt C]

This suite of exportation options is really great! I used to cook up these functions on my own, but with the frontend you created this is now a lot simpler.

When using it I found that the way you are currently implementing ghostscript will destroy the destination file if it already exists. While this may be the intended implementation, let me offer an alternative that could possibly be as useful to others.

I have edited the 'eps2pdf.m' file to allow for appending additional figures to an already existing .pdf file as follows:
<code>

function eps2pdf(source, dest)
% Construct the options string for ghostscript - create new or append
% additional sheets if the destination exists
if (exist(dest, 'file') == 2)
    tmp_nam = tempname;
    copyfile(dest, tmp_nam);
    options = ['-q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dEPSCrop -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -sOutputFile="' dest '" "' tmp_nam '" -f "' source '"'];
else
    options = ['-q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dEPSCrop -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -sOutputFile="' dest '" -f "' source '"'];
end
    
% Convert to pdf using ghostscript
ghostscript(options);
return

</code>

I hope some of you can find this modification useful!

[Mohammed Islam]

Hi Oliver,
Thanks soo much for this script. It's of great use for me. So far I haven't had any trouble using it. Just one question, is it possible to use it to control the size of the output file?

Also, thanks to Matt for the addition, Its nice to not replace an existing file and keep adding up additional figues at the bottom. Thats what I wanted to do.

Great job guys. keep it up.

Shameem

[Oliver Woodford]

Dan: Currently the only way to change the exported figure size is to change the Matlab figure size before exporting. To get round this, set the paper size options manually within export_fig.

Matt C: Thanks for the great suggestion.

Shameem/Mohammed: I wanted to keep the interface simple, so unfortunately there is no formal way to control file size. Jpeg file size can be changed by varying the quality setting within export_fig. For more options regarding quality/compression, see savefig (also on the FEX).

[Christian Dorion]

Great piece of work, thanks.

A minor thing though... Under my installation, the private/ghostscript.m function had a minor bug that resulted in the whole function being whipped out and replaced by solely the 'gs' path. Just in case it happens to anyone else, here is a simple patch:

--- MY/private/ghostscript.m
+++ ONLINE/private/ghostscript.m
@@ -103,9 +103,8 @@
 fstrm = fread(fh, '*char')';
 fclose(fh);
 % Find the path
-first_sec = regexp(fstrm, '[\n\r]*function path = current_gs_path[\n\r]*path = ''', 'end', 'once');
-second_sec = first_sec + regexp(fstrm(first_sec+1:end), ''';[\n\r]*return', 'once');
-assert(~isempty(first_sec) && ~isempty(second_sec));
+first_sec = regexp(fstrm, '[\n\r]function path = current_gs_path[\n\r]path = ''', 'end', 'once');
+second_sec = first_sec + regexp(fstrm(first_sec+1:end), ''';[\n\r]return', 'once');
 % Save the file with the path replaced
 fh = fopen(fname, 'wt');
 fprintf(fh, '%s%s%s', fstrm(1:first_sec), path, fstrm(second_sec:end));

[Edgar Guevara Codina]

Great job!
Finally I can get publication-quality graphs in a simple way.
Thanks Oliver for making it easier than ever before.

[wei feng]

Great work! You sir saved me a LOT of time.

I've been using your print_eps function for a while and found this today. However, I have a problem with converting images to eps format that has been bugging me. For example, I have two images in a matlab figure. On both images I have used the "plot" function to plot some lines on the images. The plotted lines are gray in color. When I export them into eps format, the lines on the first image would remain gray. But the lines on the second image would change to black. The same thing happens when I have more than two images with plotted lines, in which case all the plotted lines except in the first image will turn black. I was wondering if you can shed some light on this?

Thanks a lot.

[Stefan]

Great job!

But still one bug: Exporting does not work if axes is child of uipanel. Seems to be some problem when using cobyobj
Can you fix that?

[Daisy Fan]

Nice!

How can I get a high resolution eps, e.g., >300dpi? Matlab's documentation says to use the -r option, e.g.,
  print -deps -r300 myfile
but it actually doesn't work. When I look at the produced eps in a software such as Adobe Photoshop the resolution is just 72dpi. Thanks for you input!

[Gabriel Akira Schreiber]

 

[Gabriel Akira Schreiber]

 

[Johannes Korsawe]

Really nice.
I still have a problem using uipanels (guis):

 If i create a plot and a colorbar, the colorbar will not be printed in the result.

Is it possible to enable for a search for colorbars? I tried to adopt your code but failed in copying the correct stuctures.

To say it with Stefan: Can you fix/enable that?

[Sebastiaan]

 

[cartonn]

how do you export the image with a greater value of dpi?
-r600 does not work

[Jason Mar]

Great function! It saves me a lot of time, thanks!
Wish I could disable cropping more easily though.

[Annette]

I'm trying to use this function with Matlab r2007b on a Mac (OS 10.5), and I get the error:

??? Error using ==> rdivide
Number of array dimensions must match for binary array op.

Error in ==> export_fig at 143
        A = uint8(B ./ A(:,:,[1 1 1]));

Any insight?

Cheers!

[m g]

I am unable to use export_fig on my linux machine
i am using the command
export_fig f.fig -eps
and i get the following error:
'No Figure to Print"
and a Warning /tmp/tmp<long string>.eps not found

please help.
thanks,

[Erica Alston]

Hi

What is the calling sequence for using this function? should the filename be in parentheses? are the output formats the same as used by matlap e.g. -depsc?

Many thanks!

[Oliver Woodford]

m g: The figure you wish to export must be open. You cannot specify it by the filename. The filename is that of the output file, not the input file.

Erica: The filename should be a string. Just like any other MATLAB function, you can call export_fig using parentheses around the input arguments, or not, in which case the inputs are interpreted as strings; i.e. if one of the inputs is not a string then you must use parentheses. The outputs are not the same as those used by print. Type
   help export_fig
for a full description of usage.

[Francesco Montorsi]

 

[Michael Kitz]

I wanted to use this tool to save a jpg with the borders cropped. Now I realized that the axes settings were changed during export.
I was using a figure with three subplots, two graphs and an image.
The plots were displaying 7000 data points in a customized scale using the whole axes area. Matlab's autoscale uses 8000 points and so did the export function.
Is there a way to avoid the autoscale?

[Oliver Woodford]

Michael: MATLAB's print often does funny things to a plot, such as changing the number of tick marks, when you export it, and I don't know how to avoid it. Export_fig uses print, and therefore unfortunately suffers from the same problem.