Graphics    

Overview of Printing and Exporting

This section is an introduction to the graphics printing capabilities provided with MATLAB and how to make use of them. It covers

Print and Export Operations

There are four basic operations that you can perform in printing or transferring figures you've created in MATLAB.

Operation
 Description
Print
 Send a figure from the screen directly to the printer.
Print to File
 Write a figure to a PostScript file to be printed later.
Export to File
 Export a figure in graphics format to a file, so that you can import it into an application.
Export to Clipboard
 Copy a figure to the Windows clipboard, so that you can paste it into an application.

Graphical User Interfaces

You interact with the MATLAB print and export tools using either Microsoft Windows or UNIX graphical user interfaces or with MATLAB commands. The table below lists the dialog boxes you need to print and export and summarizes how to open them from the figure window.

Dialog Box
 How to Open
 Description
Print
(Windows and UNIX)
 File->Print or
printdlg function
 Send figure to the printer, select the printer, print to file, and several other options
Printing Options
 Click Options on UNIX Print dialog
 Set some of the most commonly used print settings (UNIX only)
Page Setup
 File->Page Setup
or pagesetupdlg function
 Set properties to be associated with the figure when printed or exported
Print Preview
 File->Print Preview
or printpreview function
 View and adjust the final output
ExZport
 File->Export
 Export the figure in graphics format to a file
Copy Options
 Edit->Copy Options
 Set format, figure size, and background color for Copy to Clipboard
Figure Copy Template
 File->Preferences
 Change text, line, axes, and UI control properties

You can open the Print, Page Setup, and Print Preview dialog boxes from a program or from the command line with the printdlg, pagesetupdlg, and printpreview functions.


  Printing and Exporting Command Line Interface