News

• Jan 17, 2015: v1.4 released.
• Sept 28, 2014: A tutorial on how to create subfigure using PlotPub and Inkscape posted.
• Sept 24, 2014: We are on MATLAB File Exchange.
• Sept 23, 2014: v1.3 released.

What's New in v1.4?

• Added an option for adding title.

What's New in v1.3?

• Several bugs are fixed including marker spacing.
• New options for axis color, axis line width, tick direction, tick length, minor ticks, legend box, legend text color etc.
• New, more appealing default look.

Features of v1.x

• Generate beautiful, publication quality graphs from instantly generated MATLAB figures or saved MATLAB fig files.
• Export figures in EPS, PDF, JPEG, PNG and TIFF with adjustable resolution.
• Set marker spacing.
• Change almost all aspects of a figure using simple and intuitive code.
• A lot of example codes. A decent tutorial and good documentation.
• Tested in Ubuntu and OSX with MATLAB 7.10. But it should work in other operating systems with other versions of MATLAB.
• Distributed under BSD license which allows you to do anything you like.

Compatibility with v1.1

In version 1.2, I introduced a new function setPlotProp which is superior to the old function plotPub. But for backward compatibility, plotPub is still available in v1.2+. Therefore, all of your previous codes should work with v1.2+.

Downloads

Download the latest stable version from the link below. If you are interested in development, please visit the GitHub page. The most recent development version is available here.

• PlotPub-v1.4.zip
• PlotPub-v1.3.zip
• PlotPub-v1.2.zip

Installation

Download and extract the zip file from the link given above. Install PlotPub using any one of the three possible ways: (1) copy all the *.m files inside the lib folder to either your MATLAB path or (2) copy those files to your current project folder or (3) put plotPub-master in any convenient folder and add the following line in your MATLAB code:

addpath('D:/MATLAB/PlotPub-1.4');

where, I assume that you put plotPub-1.4 in D:/MATLAB folder. The sample codes can be found inside the examples folder.

Bugs and Feature Request

If you find any bug/problems/issues, please report it here. If you want new features, please add a request here.

Tutorial

To create a beautiful figure using PlotPub, all you need to know is how to use the set-plot-properties (setPlotProp) function. It has the following syntax:

function h = setPlotProp(opt, hfig)

where, opt is the options structure that controls the figure properties and hfig is figure handle.

Let us walk you through an example. Assume that we have data for 3 cycle of a 50 Hz AC voltage signal:

clear all;

%% lets plot 3 cycles of 50Hz AC voltage
f = 50; % frequency
Vm = 10; % peak
phi = 0; % phase

% generate the signal
t = [0:0.0001:3/f];
th = 2*pi*f*t;
v = Vm*sin(th+phi);

% plot it
figure;
plot(t*1E3, v);

where, f is the frequency, Vm is the peak voltage, t is time and v is the AC voltage signal. Result? An utterly ugly looking figure punching at your face:

Now, let us add some spices. Let us set the labels:

% change settings
opt = [];
opt.XLabel = 'Time, t (ms)'; % xlabel
opt.YLabel = 'Voltage, V (V)'; % ylabel

If we want to save the plot in a file, we have to assign a file name:

% Save? comment the following line if you do not want to save
opt.FileName = 'plotSimple1.png';

Finally, call the setPlotProp function to apply the settings and export it:

% apply the settings
setPlotProp(opt);

The resulting plot should look like:

The full source code for this plot, plotSimple.m, can be found inside the examples folder.

We can change color, linewidth, linestyle etc:

opt.Colors = [0, 0, 0]; % [red, green, blue]
opt.LineWidth = 2; % line width
opt.LineStyle = {'--'}; % line style: '-', ':', '--' etc

See plotLineStyle.m for full source code. We can also change scale, axis limit, tick and grid:

opt.YScale = 'log'; % 'linear' or 'log'
opt.YLim = [1E-3, 1E3]; % [min, max]
opt.YTick = [1E-3, 1E-1, 1E1, 1E3]; %[tick1, tick2, .. ]
opt.YGrid = 'on'; % 'on' or 'off'

or create a log-log plot:

opt.YScale = 'log'; % 'linear' or 'log'
opt.XScale = 'log'; % 'linear' or 'log'
opt.YLim = [1E-3, 1E3]; % [min, max]
opt.YTick = [1E-3, 1E-1, 1E1, 1E3]; %[tick1, tick2, .. ]
opt.YGrid = 'on'; % 'on' or 'off'
opt.XGrid = 'on'; % 'on' or 'off'

See plotSimpleLog.m and plotSimpleLogLog.m for full source code.

Creating multiple plots in a single set of axes is also easy:

% generate the signal
t = [0:0.0001:3/f];
th = 2*pi*f*t;
v1 = Vm*sin(th);
v2 = Vm*sin(th - phi);
v3 = Vm*sin(th - phi*2);

% plot them
figure;
plot(t*1E3, v1);
hold on;
plot(t*1E3, v2);
plot(t*1E3, v3);
hold off;

% change settings
opt = [];
opt.XLabel = 'Time, t (ms)'; % xlabel
opt.YLabel = 'Voltage, V (V)'; % ylabel
opt.YTick = [-10, 0, 10]; % [tick1, tick2, .. ]
opt.YLim = [-11, 11]; % [min, max]

% Save? comment the following line if you do not want to save
opt.FileName = 'plotMultiple.png';

% apply the settings
setPlotProp(opt);

result:

The full source is given in plotMultiple.m. We can change the linestyle, color etc and add a legend:

opt.XLim = [0, 80]; % [min, max]
opt.Colors = [ % three colors for three data set
1, 0, 0; % data set 1
0.25, 0.25, 0.25; % data set 2
0, 0, 1; % data set 3
];
opt.LineWidth = [2, 2, 2]; % three line widths
opt.LineStyle = {'-', '-', '-'}; % three line styles
opt.Markers = {'o', '', 's'};
opt.MarkerSpacing = [15, 15, 15];
opt.Legend = {'\theta = 0^o', '\theta = 45^o', '\theta = 90^o'}; % legends

Here, opt.Colors(1,:), opt.LineWidth(1) and opt.LineStyle{1} set properties of data set 1 and so on. The full source is given in plotMarkers.m.

By default, plotPub creates figures with 6in x 2.5in box size. You can easily change the figure size using the following code.

opt.BoxDim = [7, 3]; %[width, height] in inches

This code creates a figure with 7in x 3in box.

See plotSize.m for more details.

You can also load a previously saved MATLAB fig file and export it using setPlotProp:

clear all;

% load previously generated fig file
figFile = 'single.fig';
open(figFile)

% change settings
opt.XLabel = 'Time, t (ms)'; % xlabel
opt.YLabel = 'Voltage, V (V)'; %ylabel
opt.BoxDim = [6, 5]; %[width, height]

% Save? comment the following line if you do not want to save
opt.FileName = 'plotSize.png';

% apply
setPlotProp(opt);

Documentation

Given bellow is a brief description of setPlotProp and plotPub functions and their parameters. This documents can also be viewed by invoking:

>> help setPlotProp

from inside the MATLAB command window.

opt % options structure:
BoxDim % vector [width, height]: size of the axes box in inches; default: [6, 2.5]
ShowBox % 'on' = show or 'off' = hide bounding box; default: 'on'
FontName % string: font name; default: 'Arial'
FontSize % integer; default: 26
LineWidth % vector [width1, width2, ..]: element i changes the property of i-th dataset; default: 2
LineStyle % cell array {'style1', 'style2', ..}: element i changes the property of i-th dataset; default: '-'
Markers % cell array {'marker1', 'marker2', ..}: element i changes the property of i-th dataset; default: 'None'
MarkerSpacing % vector [space1, space2, ..]: element i changes the property of i-th dataset; default: 0
Colors % 3xN matrix, [red, green, blue] where N is the number of datasets.
AxisColor % [red, green, blue]; color of the axis lines; default: black
AxisLineWidth % Witdth of the axis lines; default: 2
XLabel % X axis label
YLabel % Y axis label
ZLabel % Z axis label
XTick % [tick1, tick2, ..]: major ticks for X axis.
YTick % [tick1, tick2, ..]: major ticks for Y axis.
ZTick % [tick1, tick2, ..]: major ticks for Z axis.
XMinorTick % 'on' or 'off': show X minor tick?
YMinorTick % 'on' or 'off': show Y minor tick?
ZMinorTick % 'on' or 'off': show Z minor tick?
TickDir % tick direction: 'in' or 'out'; default: 'in'
TickLength % tick length; default: [0.02, 0.02]
XLim % [min, max]: X axis limit.
YLim % [min, max]: Y axis limit.
ZLim % [min, max]: Z axis limit.
XScale % 'linear' or 'log': X axis scale.
YScale % 'linear' or 'log': Y axis scale.
ZScale % 'linear' or 'log': Z axis scale.
XGrid % 'on' or 'off': show grid in X axis?
YGrid % 'on' or 'off': show grid in Y axis?
ZGrid % 'on' or 'off': show grid in Z axis?
XDir % 'in' or 'out': X axis tick direction
YDir % 'in' or 'out': Y axis tick direction
ZDir % 'in' or 'out': Z axis tick direction
Legend % {'legend1','legend2',...}
LegendBox % bounding box of legend: 'on'/'off'; default: 'off'
LegendBoxColor % color of the bounding box of legend; default: 'none'
LegendTextColor % color of the legend text; default: [0,0,0]
LegendLoc % 'NorthEast', ..., 'SouthWest': legend location
Resolution % Resolution (dpi) for bitmapped file. Default:600.
HoldLines % true/false. true == only modify axes settings, do not touch plot lines/surfaces. Default false.
FileName % Save? Give a file name.

hfig % Figure handle (optional). Default: current figure.

X %cell array of x coordinates
Y %cell array of y coordinates
N %number of plots to be created. N <= length(X)
opt %options structure. Same as above.