How to convert MATLAB plots to xls (Excel) sheets ?

I have almost ten to fifteen MATLAB figures which I've got by running a MATLAB code. The code takes hours to plot a figure. My professor has now asked me to make .xls (Excel) sheets from the data associated with these figures. Although, I know how to do it and that is by using the "xlswrite" command, but, really ?, I have to run the code for hours again? Can anybody recoomend me an easy way using which I could get data files directly from the MATLAB figures ?

Answer 1

[Arthur Roué]

You can access data of a plot with the line handle. For instance :

% Current figure handle (or use openfig if you saved the figure in a FIG-File)
hFigure = gcf;

% Find line handle
hLines = findobj(gcf, 'Type', 'Line')

% Here are your data
hLines.XData
hLines.YData

In this example, I assume you have only one line in each plot.

Since R2019a, prefer writetable, writematrix, or writecell instead of xlswrite

[Adnan Hayat]

Thanks, So I got the data down in the command window. You mean, I should now copy it to the Excell sheet ?

[Arthur Roué]

Assign it to a variable, then export it in Excel sheet.

% Matrix to export
mXY = hLines.XData, hLines.YData;

% Write into file
writematrix(mXY, 'YourWorkbook.xlsx', 'Sheet', 'YourSheetName')

[Adnan Hayat]

Thanks Arthur for your reply, the problem is that is that I have 3 or sometimes 4 like (array) in one figure :/

[Arthur Roué]

Can you share an example of a figure to export (I mean the saved FIG-File) ?

[Adnan Hayat]

Dear Arthur, Here you can have an example ! I would like to export the data of all the three pulses against the same time axis. I obtained these three pulses by running the code three times. Means one run, one pulse.

[Arthur Roué]

You can use handle as arrays and DisplayName property to get the signals names (what you display in the legend).

% Current figure handle (or use openfig if you saved the figure in a FIG-File)
hFigure = gcf;

% Find lines handles
vhLines = findobj(gcf, 'Type', 'Line')

% X data, I assume it's the same for all lines (otherwise use interp1)
vX = vhLines(1).XData;

% All Y data
mY = [vhLines.YData];

% All names
cNames = {vhLines.DisplayName};

% Cell to export
cToExport = {
    ['t [s]', cNames]; % Headers
    num2cell([vX, mY])}

% Write into file
writecell(cToExport, 'YourWorkbook.xlsx', 'Sheet', 'YourSheetName')

[Adnan Hayat]

[Arthur Roué]

I didn't test the code, cToExport should be in one cell :

% Cell to export
cToExport = [
    't [s]', cNames; % Headers
    num2cell([vX, mY])]

And you are in R2017a, use xlswrite instead of write cell

[Adnan Hayat]

I used the xlswrite but they are now saying that the input array is empty. I attached the ".fig" file. Can you a try and then exchange the ".m" file ?

[Arthur Roué]

Here you go

% Current figure handle (or use openfig if you saved the figure in a FIG-File)
hFigure = gcf;

% Find lines handles
vhLines = findobj(gcf, 'Type', 'Line');

% X data, I assume it's the same for all lines (otherwise use interp1)
vX = vhLines(1).XData;

% All Y data
mY = vertcat(vhLines.YData)';

% All names
cNames = {vhLines.DisplayName};

% Cell to export
cToExport = [
    't [s]', cNames; % Headers
    num2cell([vX', mY])];

% Write into file
xlswrite('YourWorkbook.xlsx', cToExport, 'YourSheetName')

[Adnan Hayat]

Dear Arthur, Thanks alot. It worked :)