Printing and Exporting Figures with MATLAB

Example - Exporting to a TIFF File

The following example shows how to export the current figure to a TIFF file. This example also shows how to set the background color to blue and keep it from changing to white when you export the figure. The instructions first refer to using the graphical user interface, then show how to perform the same operations using MATLAB commands.

Using the Graphical User Interface

1. Create a figure. You can use the following code.

   • surf(peaks(30));
     

2. Select Figure Properties from the Edit menu. This invokes the Property Editor dialog box.
3. Select the Style panel. Use the Background color scroll list to select Blue and click Apply. Then click OK.
4. Select Page Setup from the File menu. This invokes the Page Setup dialog box.
5. Select the Axes and Figure tab. Select Keep screen background color so that MATLAB will not invert the background to white when you export it.
6. Click OK.
7. Select Export from the File menu. This invokes the Export dialog box.
8. Select TIFF images or TIFF no compression images from the Save as type list. TIFF images use RLE compression, which is helpful when filesize is a concern.
9. Enter a filename in the File name field. A file extension of "tif" will already be shown.
10. Optional: Use the Save in field to navigate to a directory in which to save your file.
11. Click Save to export your figure.

Using MATLAB Commands

To perform this same tasks shown above with MATLAB commands,

• surf(peaks(30));
  set(gcf, 'Color', 'blue'); % Set background color.
  set(gcf, 'InvertHardCopy', 'off'); % Retain background color.
  print -r300 -dtiff myfile.tif % Export to TIFF file at 300 dpi.
  

Note    Because you are using the print command and a built-in MATLAB format, you can specify a resolution as shown above (-r300). For more information about resolution, see Setting Resolution.

Exporting Quick Start

Setting the Export File Format