One common xlabel and ylabel for multiple subplots

Is there a straightforward way to add one common x label and ylabel to a figure containing multiple subplots?

The solutions I read so far require a file exchange function or a fixed number of subplots, and my number of subplots ranges from 5 to 10 (generally in one column).

I'm imagining there must be a way to determine the overall figure size, regardless of the number of subplots, and center a single xlabel and ylabel on each axis of the larger figure.

Answer 1

[Subhadeep Koley]

Hi, the example code below adds one common xlabel and ylabel to a figure containing multiple subplots, irrespective of the number of subplots.

close all;clc;
fig = figure;
% Plot your subplots here
subplot(2,3,1); plot(rand(5));
subplot(2,3,2); plot(rand(5));
subplot(2,3,3); plot(rand(5));
subplot(2,3,4); plot(rand(5));
subplot(2,3,5); plot(rand(5));
subplot(2,3,6); plot(rand(5));
% Give common xlabel, ylabel and title to your figure
han=axes(fig,'visible','off'); 
han.Title.Visible='on';
han.XLabel.Visible='on';
han.YLabel.Visible='on';
ylabel(han,'yourYLabel');
xlabel(han,'yourXLabel');
title(han,'yourTitle');

Hope this helps!

EDIT: For MATLAB R2019b or above, using tiledlayout(__) would be simpler over subplot. Like below,

% Create a tiledlayout
figure
t = tiledlayout('flow');
% Plot in tiles
nexttile, plot(rand(5))
nexttile, plot(rand(5))
nexttile, plot(rand(5))
nexttile, plot(rand(5))
nexttile, plot(rand(5))
nexttile, plot(rand(5))
% Specify common title, X and Y labels
title(t, 'Common title')
xlabel(t, 'Common X label')
ylabel(t, 'Common Y label')

[Nuwan Liyanage]

Thanks, it works fine! Although depending your font size of the X,Y ticks the labels have to be shifted.

[Dibyendu Dutta]

This works!

Even with tight_subplots, this method worked, while other solutions like suplabels did not!

[Henning Eimstad]

Subhadeep Koley; how would this be different if I have double y axis? I have a 3x1 subplot created in a loop by (3,1,i), for i =1:3. In the same loop I have

yyaxis left 
xlabel('')
ylabel('')

yyaxis right
ylabel('')

I want one common left ylabel, right ylabel and xlabel.

[Subhadeep Koley]

Henning Eimstad The below code might help!

close all;
fig = figure;

% Plot your subplots here
for idx = 1:3
    subplot(3, 1, idx); plot(rand(10));
end

% Give common xlabel, ylabel and title to your figure
% Create a new axis
ax = axes(fig);

% Specifiy the active side for the axes ax
yyaxis(ax, 'left');

% Specify visibility of the current axis as 'off'
han = gca;
han.Visible = 'off';

% Specify visibility of Title, XLabel, and YLabel as 'on'
han.Title.Visible = 'on';
han.XLabel.Visible = 'on';
han.YLabel.Visible = 'on';

% Give title, xlabel and left ylabel
title('Title')
xlabel('X Label')
ylabel('Left Y Label')

% Specifiy the active side for the axes ax
yyaxis(ax, 'right');

% Give right ylabel
ylabel('Right Y Label')

% Specify visibility of YLabel as 'on'
han.YLabel.Visible = 'on';

[Vivek Deulkar]

how to postion this common xlabel and ylabel? I want to shift the commona yLabel slightly to the left and xlabel slightly downward.

[Silva]

@Vivek, edit plot option may help. Go to-- figure>tools>edit plot> place the cursor on the one you want to move or

you can find edit plot option directly from the tool bar, it looks like cursor.

Hope that helps!

[Karel Olavarria Gamez]

Super simple and nice solution! Thanks a lot

[Aymane ahajjam]

Thanks!!!

[志鹏 陈]

Thanks!!!

[Changbo Yu]

Thank you!

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

If you have R2018b or later, use sgtitle().

[Matthew Anderson]

This solution does not solve the axis labelling problem.

[Charles Daigle]

i'm not sure why MathWorks would implement a solution to labeling a set of plots titles at once, but not their axes (in the case they are arranged to imply a common axis)

[Stephen]

Ughhhhhh

[Image Analyst]

@Charles Daigle I'm not sure what you mean. You can give a title to each axes with title. Perhaps if you posted a screenshot. Do you mean that you don't want each y axis to have it's own label and you want a single y label for, say, a stack of 10 plots? You know you can just have no label and use text to put up a vertical label to the left of all your plots positioned and rotated however you like.