Printing MATLAB Graphics (Using MATLAB Graphics)

Using MATLAB Graphics

Additional Considerations

This section describes additional issues you should consider when selecting graphic formats.

Editing Graphics Files Outside of MATLAB

If you need to be able to edit the graphic once it is imported into the new application, there are a few options:

If the target application is Adobe Illustrator, create the file using the print -dill command. The resulting file is editable in Illustrator.
On the PC, the Enhanced Metafile format can be edited in many applications, such as Powerpoint.
Some painting programs can edit bitmaps in certain formats. For example, the Paintbrush application that comes with Windows can edit PCX files.

Portability of Graphics File Formats

Portability is an issue if you use more than one computer platform. If you use the target application on more than one platform, you need to use a format that is not platform-specific. TIFF and EPS formats are good choices, because they are supported on all platforms that MATLAB runs on.

Using the Clipboard

In terms of convenience, copying to the clipboard and pasting into the target application is generally the simplest method. The disadvantages of this approach are that you are limited to working on a single platform, no file is created and you cannot specify print command options.

Creating Graphics File Formats Not Supported by MATLAB

Note that if you need output in a graphics format that MATLAB does not produce, you may be able to use a format conversion application to convert a MATLAB-produced graphic to another format. For example, MATLAB does not produce GIF files (due to patent restrictions), but there are many applications that can convert TIFF files to GIF.

Creating Graphic Files for Use in HTML Documents

MATLAB enables you to exports figures as JPEG files. You can include references to these files directly from HTML documents since WEB browsers can display this file format. You can also create PNG files, which may be supported by your WEB viewer.

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