labelEdgeSubPlots

Automatically apply x and y labels to subplots only along the edges.
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Updated 11 Jul 2012

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function H=labelEdgeSubPlots(xl,yl,onlyBottom)

Purpose
If all subplots have the same quantities on the x and y axes then
there's no point labeling all of them. Often it looks neater to
simply have y labels only on the plots along the left hand
edge and x labels only on the plots along the bottom. This
function does this automatically for the current figure.

Inputs
xl - a string specifying what to label the x axes.
yl - a string specifying what to label the y axes.
onlyBottom - by default this is zero and the function adds an
x-axis to appropriate plots from the penultimate row
if the bottom row of plots is incomplete. set
onlyBottom to 1 to suppress this behaviour.
* in addition: onlyBottom can be a vector of axis handles to
be processsed.
Outputs
H - a structure containing handles to the x and y axis labels

Example
clf
for i=1:5
subplot(2,3,i)
x=[0:10]; y=1+0.01*x.^3+randn(size(x))*0.2;
plot(x,y,'ok'), xlabel('will be removed')
end

H=labelEdgeSubPlots('beer [pints]','faux pas');
%or:
H=labelEdgeSubPlots('beer [pints]','faux pas',1);
%One can also do:
set(H.xlabels,'color','red','fontweight','bold')

%proccess only some subplots
ax=[];
for i=1:25
subplot(5,5,i), box on
if mod(i,5)==1, ax=[gca,ax]; end
end
labelEdgeSubPlots('X','Y',ax);

Rob Campbell - January 2009

Cite As

Rob Campbell (2024). labelEdgeSubPlots (https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/26332-labeledgesubplots), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved .

MATLAB Release Compatibility
Created with R2009a
Compatible with any release
Platform Compatibility
Windows macOS Linux

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Version Published Release Notes
1.6.0.0

And another correction to the help...

1.5.0.0

Fixed error in one of the exampled.

1.3.0.0

Add H1 line

1.2.0.0

Returns label handles.
3rd input can now also be a vector of axis handles to be labeled.

1.1.0.0

Now skips axes which are Matlab-generated legends or colorbars. Please let me know if it gets confused by other figure child elements.

1.0.0.0