MATLAB: How to rotate the axis tick labels in 2-D and 3-D

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I would like to rotate the axis tick labels in 2-D and 3-D.

Best Answer

For MATLAB releases before R2014b, below is an example that demonstrates how to rotate the X-tick labels in MATLAB :
 
% Create some data: 
X = 1:12; 
Y = rand(1,12); 
% Generate a plot 
bar(X,Y); 
% Set the tick locations and remove the labels 
set(gca,'XTick',1:12,'XTickLabel','') 
% Define the labels 
lab = [{'January'};{'February'};{'March'};{'April'};{'May'};{'June'};...
         {'July'};{'August'};{'September'};{'October'};...
         {'November'};{'December'}];
% Estimate the location of the labels based on the position 
% of the xlabel 
hx = get(gca,'XLabel');  % Handle to xlabel 
set(hx,'Units','data'); 
pos = get(hx,'Position'); 
y = pos(2); 
% Place the new labels 
for i = 1:size(lab,1) 
  t(i) = text(X(i),y,lab(i,:)); 
end 
set(t,'Rotation',90,'HorizontalAlignment','right')
Following is a simple example of how to rotate an x-label in 3-D:
 
view(3) 
xlabel('Hello'); 
h = get(gca,'xlabel'); 
set(h,'Rotation',20)
Alternatively, you can use this user created File Exchange submission that can perform the same task:
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/27812-rotate-x-axis-tick-labels
Please note that the above File Exchange file was not authored by MathWorks. Any questions regarding this file should be directed to the contributing author of that file.
NOTE: If you are working under the MS Windows version of MATLAB, you will need to make sure that you are using a Truetype font in your text objects. Truetype are the only fonts which can be rotated correctly on the screen and on printouts.
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