How to save a chart in a PDF file without a large margin

Question

If I print the chart in EPS format, the contents of the EPS file are completely occupied by the chart. But if I print the plot in PDF format, then there are large fields above and below the graph in the PDF file. How to save the plot in a PDF file without a large margin around the graph?

My assumption is how to automatically select the right “paper” size in the PDF file to print according to the size of the chart.

This is the question I asked at tex.stackexchange.com where I have answers that basically tried to solve the problem outside of MATLAB , and I still do not quite understand the only answer that I tried to solve from MATLAB. So I would like to see if there are more opinions here.

Answer 1

What do you mean by "right size"? MATLAB numbers are similar to vector graphics, so you can basically choose the size you want on your plot.

You can set the paper size and position of the shape using the set function.

Example:

plot(epx(1:5)); set(gcf, 'PaperPosition', [0 0 5 5]); %Position plot at left hand corner with width 5 and height 5. set(gcf, 'PaperSize', [5 5]); %Set the paper to have width 5 and height 5. saveas(gcf, 'test', 'pdf') %Save figure 

The code above will remove most of the boundaries, but not all. This is because the left corner ( [0 0] in the position vector) is not the "true" left corner. To remove more borders, you can adjust the PaperPosition and PaperSize vectors.

Example:

 plot(exp(1:5)) set(gcf, 'PaperPosition', [-0.5 -0.25 6 5.5]); %Position the plot further to the left and down. Extend the plot to fill entire paper. set(gcf, 'PaperSize', [5 5]); %Keep the same paper size saveas(gcf, 'test', 'pdf') 

Answer 2

This works to display goals:

 set(gca(), 'LooseInset', get(gca(), 'TightInset')); 

It should work for printing. A.

Answer 3

Axle size in MATLAB can sometimes be a little complicated. You are right to suspect paper properties as one of the problems. The other is the automatic fields that MATLAB calculates. Fortunately, there are custom axis properties that circumvent these fields. You can reset so that the fields are large enough for the axis labels using a combination of the Position and TightInset , which are explained here . Try the following:

 >> h = figure;
 >> axes;
 >> set (h, 'InvertHardcopy', 'off');
 >> saveas (h, 'WithMargins.pdf');

and you get a PDF file that looks like this: but now do the following:

 >> tightInset = get (gca, 'TightInset');
 >> position (1) = tightInset (1);
 >> position (2) = tightInset (2);
 >> position (3) = 1 - tightInset (1) - tightInset (3);
 >> position (4) = 1 - tightInset (2) - tightInset (4);
 >> set (gca, 'Position', position);
 >> saveas (h, 'WithoutMargins.pdf');

and you will receive:

Answer 4

The script in How to get rid of the white box in MATLAB backups or print pins does what you want.

Answer 5

The export_fig function in MATLAB file sharing cuts spaces around the default PDF / EPS output file when exporting a shape.

Answer 6

It seems to me that all approaches (file sharing solutions that are not considered) do not have a significant step here or, finally, lead to it through some blurry workarounds.

The size of the figure should be equal to the size of the paper, and there are no white margins.

 A = hgload('myFigure.fig'); % set desired output size set(A, 'Units','centimeters') height = 15; width = 19; % the last two parameters of 'Position' define the figure size set(A, 'Position',[25 5 width height],... 'PaperSize',[width height],... 'PaperPositionMode','auto',... 'InvertHardcopy', 'off',... 'Renderer','painters'... %recommended if there are no alphamaps ); saveas(A,'printout','pdf') 

Gives you the output in pdf format, since your figure will appear exactly in the right size. If you want it to be even denser, you can combine this solution with answer b3 .

Answer 7

Save to EPS and then convert to PDF:

 saveas(gcf, 'nombre.eps', 'eps2c') system('epstopdf nombre.eps') %Needs TeX Live (maybe it works with MiKTeX). 

You will need software that converts EPS to PDF.

Answer 8

 system ('/usr/bin/pdfcrop filename.pdf');