Introduction

figexp.m is a Matlab script to export figures into various formats. Compared to a simple Save as... from the Matlab figure window, the script allows to configure additional options like paper size, font size, line widths.

Furthermore, when you want to include the exported figure into a Latex document it is often desired to have the same font shape and size in the figure labels as in the whole document. For a filename with an extension .tikz or .tex the plot lines of the figure will be saved as a PDF plus Latex/Pgfplots code to render the axes and labels (see Tikz/Pgfplots axes).

General Usage

FIGEXP(FILENAME) will export and save the current figure to FILENAME. The file type depends on the extension, supported types are .pdf, .png, .jpg, ...

Optional parameters (type help figexp in Matlab to list all available options):

FIGEXP(FILENAME, H) exports the figure with the given handle H

FIGEXP(FILENAME, AX) exports the given axis handle AX

FIGEXP(..., 'PaperSize', VAL, ...) set the size of the exported figure in
centimeters, e.g. [10, 5] will set a size of 10cm x 5cm 

FIGEXP(..., 'LineWidth', VAL, ...)

FIGEXP(..., 'FontSize', VAL, ...)

Example:

  x = -10:0.1:10;
  y = x.^2;
  h = plot(x,y);
  figexp('out.pdf', h, 'PaperSize', [10 8]);

Tikz/Pgfplots axes

Giving a filename with an extension .tikz or .tex will create two separate files:

1. A Latex file with the text elements (e.g. axis and tick labels, titles, ...)
2. A PDF file with all graphical elements.

The exported Tex/Pgfplots code has to to be included in the main Latex document.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=newest}

%%% optional commands
% set the font size
%\tikzset{font=\scriptsize}

\begin{document}

  \begin{figure}
      \centering \input{test.tikz}
      \caption{This image was exported with the figexp() function.}
  \end{figure}

\end{document}

Licence

figexp.m is licensed under he GPLv3 licence.