Make Great MATLAB Figures for your Scientific Paper or your PhD Thesis

[@PhysicsLaure]

Can you please promote this video on Reddit (in a relevant subreddit)? You'd be an angel!

[@raffaelenicolapiazzolla3927]

Extremely detailed yet intuitive explanation, love it!

[@PixelVoxelVoila]

Thank you so much! I have been hating my figures on matlab right from the start. I have gone all around internet searching for the perfect code to just plug into every figure I generate instead of having functions and complicating the code. But this was the best and very clearly explained. Thanks again!

[@PhysicsLaure]

Glad I could help Anupama ! 💚

[@reitrop6273]

Thank you for the tutorial. I made the switch to Python some months ago, but these are still very useful guidelines (regarding font size, colours, file formats, etc.).

[@PhysicsLaure]

Hi! You should def. build a little set of lines to male your figures pretty. It also keeps everything homogeneous ;)

[@reitrop6273]

@@PhysicsLaure Thank you for the advice. I’ll certainly do it once my “style” of figures has matured.

[@MTauhaA]

Really useful tips for producing presentable figures from MATLAB. Two file exchange submissions that seem highly relevant here are: 1. Fixfig (This does quite a few things mentioned in the video for font style and marker style in MATLAB graphic objects through typing just one word) 2. export_fig (This produces high-res and correctly cropped figures for exporting from MATLAB)

[@PhysicsLaure]

Hey Muhammad, 100% agree on both files. I prefer to have solutions that are independent of them as a rule of thumb, I always end up with issues downloading them, or with people who can't. Thanks for watching this video :D

[@alboTBA]

Thank you a lot! I was struggling so much with the formatting!

[@PhysicsLaure]

Good luck with it! Also go Bern :)

[@samblake9953]

Great stuff!! Having a preset like that also really cuts down on the time I spend formatting plots as I will spend waaay more time than I should. Thank you!

[@subhadipkarmakar2841]

Thank you very much Madam for this tutorial video😇 from India 🇮🇳

[@mustafaalshaqaq2303]

Nice! I liked your way of creating figures. Keep up the good work. One comment though is the "TickLength" property does not adjust well especially if you want to create small figures. I had this issue before and I always wanted to find a way to automatically take care of this issue. Also, I had this issue of the default black color used for labels, axes, ticks, etc. is not really black, I believe the default is [0.15 0.15 0.15]. I just wanted to mention this because especially in LaTeX the font is black and sometimes it becomes clear that the figure fonts are a bit lighter than the text in latex. Thanks.

[@LaureMBrussolo]

Hey! Thanks for the feedback on the color. I'm going to check. Agree on TickLength, I often end up manually setting value ranges -_-

[@LaureMBrussolo]

Usually for ticks, I know what range I have so I set either both bounds + 1/2 ticks in the middle, or every specific values. You can set ax.XTick = -1000:1000 and it'll only show the relevant numbers 😉 For the first thing, it's just ax.XTick = ax.XLim :)

[@subhranilbarman4538]

Thanks for the information... very helpful

[@coolabahwoodworking]

That's a gerat video Amazing!

[@PhysicsLaure]

Oh thanks 🧡🧡🧡

[@AhmetFrk347]

Thank you for sharing this. Such a great code!

[@PhysicsLaure]

You welcome :)

[@venkatprasadpadhy1656]

Thank you for the nice explanation, but you have not discussed about removing the whitespaces around the plot, can you please...

[@emrahyalcin]

it was a very informative video. thanks for sharing. I'll wait for more tips.

[@LaureMBrussolo]

Thanks ^^

[@QED.]

Thanks for explanation, it couldn't be better!

[@PhysicsLaure]

Aww 🥰

[@youngwoosim2096]

really nice!!! would you share your tips on legends and especially color schemes? how do you manage those?

[@SSoIo]

Excellent video and code, thank you for sharing :) Was just wondering if we would need to reference you in some way for using the code and if so, how?

[@PhysicsLaure]

You can quote PhysicsLaure if you'd like but otherwise feel free to use the code. I'm team OpenSource on that kind of things 💚

[@SSoIo]

@@PhysicsLaure Wonderful, thanks again ❤

[@farhazexplains]

Can you please help me how you create your videos? I really like the style.

[@ScuffedF1]

Hiya, I've got some questions as I am having issues implementing your code. Taking 1:08 as a screenshot, your code is split into two parts. For the part of the code "Picturewidth..." and below, do I need to copy this after every single figure I create on MATLAB or can I include it at the bottom of my document and be done with it? It would be cool if you could share a document showing the implementation of your code within a MATLAB livescript rather than in isolation (to made it idiot proof haha). Appreciate the work Ciao

[@MostafaMASLOUHI]

Thank you very much. Great work. it would be very nice if you can make a tutorial on legends and color schemes.

[@Cuneytege1975]

Thanks for the tutorial.

[@experimentariumciencia]

Thank You for this great video. Ivan Experimentarium Brazil

[@PhysicsLaure]

Hi Ivan! Thanks for watching :)

[@shane3379]

Excellent video, very informative and really well made!

[@PhysicsLaure]

Hi Shane! Thanks :D

[@Axelfotze]

Thank you so much for sharing this! This is great! I however like to crop the PDF so there will be no white borders. I just replaced :"print(hfig,fname,'-dpdf','-painters','-fillpage')" with "exportgraphics(hfig, strcat(fname,'.pdf'), 'ContentType', 'vector');"

[@PhysicsLaure]

Hi Haroun! I didn't know about that function!! Cool ^^

[@helderfn]

Is there a way to do this in Octave? I need to remove the withe borders too.

[@marce-work]

Wow! you are amazing for sharing these secrets with us

I have the same question about legend, have you found a solution? :)

[@VisualVEN0M]

Amazing video

[@PhysicsLaure]

Thanks! ^^

[@jrgenmyklebust5157]

can you share the color vectors you are using? great vid!

[@PhysicsLaure]

Hey! I copy pasted the colormapa developed for matplotlib (magma & co) as they are very pretty :)

[@carlosstevensanchezrincon4783]

@@PhysicsLaure could you show how to do that?

[@williamnguyen1312]

Life saver, better than chatGPT

[@gauravmediratta2926]

Would you be able to make a tutorial/ share code on how to create a good legend?

[@oleskarjsok9392]

Do you have a good way of setting up the colorbar text?

[@ehsannavvabi6284]

Nice Work 🤯🤯🤯🤯

[@christiancahig2269]

Is it possible to have an object-oriented way of handling figures and axes?

[@PhysicsLaure]

You can have arrays of handle yes. I did it a couple times. Something like listaxes{i} = axes(...);

[@rahulaggarwal08]

Hi! Thank you so much for a great tutorial! I had been looking for something exactly like this. Just one question- when I print figures using your code, the whitespace/margins around the actual plot are too wide. So when I embed the figure in any document, the actual plot looks smaller. Is there a fix for this?

[@mathijslemmens9727]

Thank you for your advice. My plots look way better this way. However, when I try to save each figure as a PDF file, I run into a problem. The PDF that is saved only displays a small area of the total plot. I tried to experiment with different width and hw-ratios, but it did not work

[@40NoNameFound-100-years-ago]

Hello, Thanks for such a great video. I have a question regarding the output pdf file. Now, In case I am writing a research paper and the paper has two columns, suppose I will place the pdf image in one of the columns and not in the middle of the paper, what is the suitable width I should choose for the pdf file when I use : \includegraphics[width=??]{filename.filetype}.....thanks again

[@PhysicsLaure]

Hi Mohamed! I'd recommemd you manually try it out to see. I usually keep the width at 0.6 and adapt the fontsize until I'm happy with how it fits in the paper. The cool thing is that you can do it on any figure, and it'll work for all :)

[@henriquethetraiN]

@@PhysicsLaure How to save each graphic element separately in png?

[@freemanmeno2709]

Great content! I tried running it in a FOR loop but I get errors on the figure handles. I created a list of figure handles a I let hfig go through the list but it only works for the first element of my list.

[@PhysicsLaure]

Hey! I don't have the code on hand by arrays of figures are difficult. from memory I stored it in a cell array, and write: myaxis{i} = figure; Hope you find your problem!

[@freemanmeno2709]

@@PhysicsLaure thanks! I will try it out

[@filipe.tavares]

Hi, Thank you for the tutorial! I really appreciate it!! By the way, what is the editor you use for Matlab scripts? And what is this color scheme and font style? It looks amazing

[@PhysicsLaure]

Happy you like it Filipe! I made the text in the ideo editor itself. I use one of the dark theme Monokai (my favourite) 😉

[@josetjaw8161]

I use matlab in vscode just to be able to use theme. And monokai is one of my fav theme too! 😁

[@mustaphamustapha3881]

Thanks, good job

[@PhysicsLaure]

Thanks ! ^^

[@jamesengstrom4098]

I need pretty colours for my legends and colour schemes pls

[@PhysicsLaure]

I'm a fan of matlplotlib's colorscheme. You can "steal" them if you can get the array of 3D value. Copy-paste it in excel or directly in Matlab, and you have a new colorscheme :)

[@tannguyentrong1142]

thank youuuuuuuuuuuuu so muchh

[@henriquethetraiN]

How to save each graphic element separately in png?

[@hahaxd9497]

I always get the Error after copypasting the code: Error using matlab.graphics.internal.name (line 101) Cannot create output file '.\myfigure.png'. Error in print (line 71) pj = matlab.graphics.internal.name( pj ); Error in Graphenfürmodulation (line 71) print(hfig,fname,'-dpng','-painters')

[@PhysicsLaure]

Hey! Try without the ".\" in the print command. Otherwise you might not have the rights to create a new file 🤔

[@hahaxd9497]

Ah thank you! Now it works

[@sidchen5695]

Thanks,helps a lot!

[@LaureMBrussolo]

Yay ^^

[@hishan.farfan]

Thank you so much!

[@PhysicsLaure]

😊

[@waseemshameer3275]

What to do if i have multiple figures in the same figure? Also with picturewidth = 20, the figure is shifted to the right a lot in my Latex document

[@PhysicsLaure]

It's shifted to the right bc 20 is too wide for your document. Decrease it til you like it. For the several figures it works just as normal but you need to learn how to manage them (an entire topic in itself 😂)

[@waseemshameer3275]

@@PhysicsLaure Thank you for the reply, what are the margins you use on your documents?

[@PhysicsLaure]

@@waseemshameer3275 the ones in the video 😅

[@kingsoz3372]

How do you include the legend with the proposed matlab code in the video? Thanks

[@PhysicsLaure]

You use DisplayName when you plot to set the label of each legend entry, then simply lg=legend('show');

[@codeparity]

how do you add space between the labels and the axis

[@PhysicsLaure]

You can set the position of each label, I'd typically do mylabel.Position(x) = mylabel.Position(x)+0.1

[@shtrafnoy]

We're still waiting your tutorial on legends and color schemes?🙃

[@PhysicsLaure]

Haha! I might do it but I need to use my old computer that has matlab 😂

[@heictorcosta4242]

@@PhysicsLaure We will be waiting

[@yazanmostafa6813]

How do I add a straight line that belongs to some curved points It ends at x=0

[@PhysicsLaure]

Hi ! plot([0, x], [o, y],'-')

[@shayanroohbakhsh9321]

cool

[@PhysicsLaure]

Thanks Shayan! ^^

[@dr.imrankhanyousufzai4710]

I'm unable to make the labels and ticks "bold" using your code. Can you please guide

[@PhysicsLaure]

Off the top of my head, you can set boldness with the FontWeight parameters (copy paste the line setting the font for everything, and try using it with fontweight". 🤔

[@dr.imrankhanyousufzai4710]

@@PhysicsLaure Thanks for the reply. Actually I tried "FontWeight",'b'. but its not working with the current code. If interpreter is not set to 'latex' then it work.

[@jerichocz8079]

Love u

[@tilkesh]

thx

[@TrymArveLundGabrielsen]

Great stuff. I made it into a nice function that I have in my 'general ' library if anyone's interested (it uses "exportgraphics" instead of "print", which I find much nicer): function printfigure(filename,options) % Code taken from youtube video: % "kzbin.info/www/bejne/rYGWm52hZrRkbqM" % by PhysicsLaure. arguments filename options.columntype string {ismember(options.columntype,["single","double"])} = "single"; options.fig = gcf; options.hw_ratio double {mustBePositive} = 0.65; options.fontsize double {mustBePositive} = 10; options.filetype string {ismember(options.filetype,["pdf","png"])} = "pdf"; end hfig = options.fig; hw_ratio = options.hw_ratio; % feel free to play with this ratio fontsize = options.fontsize; % adjust fontsize to your document if options.columntype == "single" picturewidth = 15; % set this parameter and keep it forever for continuity in your work elseif options.columntype == "double" picturewidth = 9; % set this parameter and keep it forever for continuity in your work else error('invalid columntype.') end set(findall(hfig,'-property','FontSize'),'FontSize',fontsize) set(findall(hfig,'-property','Box'),'Box','off') % optional set(findall(hfig,'-property','Interpreter'),'Interpreter','latex') set(findall(hfig,'-property','TickLabelInterpreter'),'TickLabelInterpreter','latex') set(hfig,'Units','centimeters','Position',[3 3 picturewidth hw_ratio*picturewidth]) pos = get(hfig,'Position'); set(hfig,'PaperPositionMode','Auto','PaperUnits','centimeters','PaperSize',[pos(3), pos(4)]) if options.filetype == "pdf" exportgraphics(hfig,[char(filename),'.pdf'],'ContentType','vector') elseif options.filetype == "png" exportgraphics(hfig,[char(filename),'.png'],'ContentType','image') else error('Invalid filetype.') end end

[@swaree]

many thanks!

[@TrymArveLundGabrielsen]

@@swaree No problem🙂 glad someone found it useful

[@RabiulIslamSikder]

Great video