Getting Started

Editing Plots

MATLAB formats a graph to provide readability, setting the scale of axes, including tick marks on the axes, and using color and line style to distinguish the plots in the graph. However, if you are creating presentation graphics, you may want to change this default formatting or add descriptive labels, titles, legends and other annotations to help explain your data.

MATLAB supports two ways to edit the plots you create.

• Using the mouse to select and edit objects interactively
• Using MATLAB functions at the command-line or in an M-file

Interactive Plot Editing

If you enable plot editing mode in the MATLAB figure window, you can perform point-and-click editing of the objects in your graph. In this mode, you select the object or objects you want to edit by double-clicking it. This starts the Property Editor, which provides access to properties of the object that control its appearance and behavior.

For more information about interactive editing, see Using Plot Editing Mode. For information about editing object properties in plot editing mode, see Using the Property Editor.

Note    Plot editing mode provides an alternative way to access the properties of MATLAB graphic objects. However, you can only access a subset of object properties through this mechanism. You may need to use a combination of interactive editing and command line editing to achieve the effect you desire.

Using Functions to Edit Graphs

If you prefer to work from the MATLAB command line or if you are creating an M-file, you can use MATLAB commands to edit the graphs you create. Taking advantage of MATLAB Handle Graphics system, you can use the set and get commands to change the properties of the objects in a graph. For more information about using command line, see Handle Graphics.

Saving a Figure

Using Plot Editing Mode