How to save a figure that is larger then the screen?

Hello,

i'm trying to save a 53x53 cm sized figure to an .eps-file. This results in a file containing only the on screen visible part of the figure. I'm using the Save As Option of the figure's menubar.

Example-Code:

plot(1:50,1:50);
set(gca, 'units', 'centimeters');
set(gca, 'position', [3 3 53 53]);

Thx, Peter

Answer 1

[Daniel Shub]

You cannot make figures larger than the screen size and if an axis does not fit in a figure, it gets truncated.

One possibility is to reduce the ScreenPixelsPerInch root property

set(0, 'ScreenPixelsPerInch', x)

where x is chosen so that MATLAB will think your monitor has both a width and height greater than or equal to 53 cm. You probably want to add some padding also for task and menu bars.

I have no idea how this will affect the output.

[Peter]

Didn't work fully.

I used x=40.

It helped me to fit the too large axes on the screen.

But if this are the sections of the figure:

[1] [2]

[3] [4]

The resulting .eps-file contained only:

[2]

[4]

But i could save it as a .fig-file that contained all the data.

Then i used export_fig.m from file-exchange, to export it as an .eps-file. And that did work. So my problem is solved.

Big thx

[Tim Keiper]

This no longer works in Matlab 2019 - ScreenPixelsPerInch set to read only. is there a new solution using export_fig.m?

Answer 2

[Demis John]

I Agree - see Jim's link above (skip the 2 spam posts & see Romesh's explanation) - enables one to save a figure of arbitrarily large size, regardless of size on screen.

You essentially use

set(gcf, 'PaperPosition', [0 0 20 20])    % can be bigger than screen 
set(gcf, 'PaperSize', [20 20])    % Same, but for PDF output

& the print command:

print(gcf, 'MyFigure.png', '-dpng', '-r300' );   %save file as PNG w/ 300dpi
print(gcf, 'MyFigure.pdf', '-dpdf', '-r300' );   %save file as PDF w/ 300dpi

Units are inches by default; can change 'Units' property if desired.

[Daniel Shub]

I don't see how this works. If I want an axis that is exactly 53 cm x 53 cm what commands do I need to run?

Answer 3

[Jim]

This was recently answered here: Question: How do you create figures bigger than the screen

The answer is very elegant and uses the paper property size to print a figure of any size you want. Very helpful.

Answer 4

[Adam Danz]

Starting in R2025a, exportgraphics has options to specify the size of the exported figure. These features are exported in detail in the Graphics and App Building blog: https://blogs.mathworks.com/graphics-and-apps/2025/12/08/advanced-control-of-size-and-layout-of-exported-graphics/