MATLAB: Isn’t the entire figure visible, after being pasted into another program

boundingboxemfMATLABpastesize;word

Why isn't the entire figure visible, after being pasted into another program?

I've created a figure, set its PaperPosition property to 'auto', and selected Copy Figure from the figure's Edit Menu. After I paste the figure into another program, the visible portion of the figure only contains part of the axes' X label.

Best Answer

This is a bug in MATLAB 6.0 (R12). Our development staff has been notified and is currently looking into addressing this problem in a future release.

Currently, the only known workaround is to use Microsoft Word. If the entire figure was copied and pasted; it isn't being displayed properly in Word because the bounding box wasn't selected properly. It isn't known if other programs will still contain all of the figure's data, making it possible to recover the original image by resizing the bounding box.

This workaround describes the procedure in Word 2000. Similar options should be available for Word 97. In Word, you will need to change the bounding box of the picture through the Edit Picture mode:

1. Right click on the picture and select Edit Picture.

2. This will open the picture in another document window, and there will also be an 'Edit Picture' toolbar available. It has a 'Reset Picture Boundary' button that will automatically resize the bounding box. This will make the entire picture visible in the first Word document.

3. You could also change the margins through File -> Page Setup, when in Edit Picture mode, which has the same effect.

Related Solutions

MATLAB: Am I not able to copy and paste a map figure into Word from the Mapping Toolbox 1.2 (R12 and R12.1)

This bug has been fixed in Release 14 Service Pack 2 (R14SP2). For previous releases, read below for any possible workarounds:

This is a bug in MATLAB.

One way to work around this problem is to export the figure as a bitmap. You can do this by choosing the option in "File-->Preferences...-->Figure Copy Template-->Copy Options-->Clipboard Format-->Bitmap", then selecting Copy Figure from the figure's Edit menu.

You could also use the following code to copy the figure to the clipboard.

print -dbitmap

Now you can paste the map from the clipboard into your Word document.

MATLAB: Am I unable to edit the EMF-file I exported from MATLAB in Microsoft Word

This is not a bug in MATLAB.

In order to be able to edit the exported EMF file follow the listed steps:

1. Make sure that you are using a vector renderer (i.e. "painters") for your figure. You can check the renderer for your current figure by issuing the following command at the MATLAB prompt:

get(gcf, 'renderer')

2. Ensure that the figure is set to export the vector information when you copy the figure using "Copy Figure" from the "Edit" menu. This can be done as follows:

 In the figure, under "Edit  -> Copy Options", ensure "Preserve Information" is selected.

Now, if you copy the file ("Edit -> Copy") or save the file as an Enhanced MetaFile (EMF) using the PRINT command as shown above,you will be able to edit it in MS Word. There is, however, a problem in the way MS Word handles metafiles. The metafile generated by the code above is not editable in Word 2003 (MS PowerPoint allows editing, but it creates some unnecessary lines in the process). This same file can be edited in other EMF editing programs such as Metafile Companion, downloadable from the following web site:

http://www.companionsoftware.com/

The problem in MS Word is related to the number of elements in the metafile. To illustrate the problem, run the following code in MATLAB:

   figure ('renderer','painters')
   z = peaks(35);
   mesh(z);
   colormap([0 0 0]);
   print -dmeta peaks2.emf

This will produce fewer graphic elements than if you used "z=peaks;". If you insert "peaks2.emf" in an MS Word document following the steps described above, it can now be edited like other figures. In other words, MS Word does not allow the user to edit metafiles that have more than a certain number of elements. For workarounds, you should consult the MS Word documentation or contact Microsoft.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: Am I not able to copy and paste a map figure into Word from the Mapping Toolbox 1.2 (R12 and R12.1)

MATLAB: Am I unable to edit the EMF-file I exported from MATLAB in Microsoft Word

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