Documentation

Axes Position-Related Properties

The Axes object has several properties that control the axes size and the layout of titles and axis labels within a figure.

Position and Margin Boundaries

This figure shows a 2-D view of the axes areas defined by the OuterPosition values (red), the Position values (blue), and the Position expanded by the TightInset values (magenta).

This figure shows a 3-D view of the axes areas defined by the OuterPosition values (red), the Position values (blue), and the Position expanded by the TightInset values (magenta).

Controlling Automatic Resize Behavior

Some scenarios can trigger the Axes object to automatically resize. For example, interactively resizing the figure or adding a title or axis labels activates automatic resizing. Sometimes, the new axes size cannot satisfy both the Position and OuterPosition values, so the PositionConstraint property indicates which values to preserve. Specify the PositionConstraint property as one of these values:

Usually, leaving the PositionConstraint property set to 'outerposition' is preferable. However, an overly long axes title or labels can shrink the inner area of your axes to a size that is hard to read. In such a case, keeping the inner axes to a specific size can be preferable, even if the surrounding text runs off the figure.

For example, create a figure with two axes and specify the same width and height for each axes position. Set the PositionConstraint property to 'outerposition' for the upper axes and to 'innerposition' for the lower axes. Notice that in the upper axes, the inner area shrinks to accommodate the text, but the text does not run outside the figure. In the lower axes, the size of the inner area is preserved, but some of the text is cut off.

figure; 
ax1 = axes('Position',[0.13 0.58 0.77 0.34]);
ax1.PositionConstraint = 'outerposition';
% R2019b and earlier: ax1.ActivePositionProperty = 'outerposition';
plot(ax1,1:10)
title(ax1,'Preserve OuterPosition')
yticklabels(ax1,{'My incredibly descriptive, excessively wordy, and overly long label',...
    'label 2','label 3'})

ax2 = axes('Position',[0.13 0.11 0.77 0.34]);
ax2.PositionConstraint = 'innerposition';
% R2019b and earlier: ax2.ActivePositionProperty = 'position';
plot(ax2,1:10)
title(ax2,'Preserve Position')
yticklabels(ax2,{'My incredibly descriptive, excessively wordy, and overly long label',...
    'label 2','label 3'})

Stretch-to-Fill Behavior

By default, MATLAB stretches the axes to fill the available space. This “stretch-to-fill” behavior can cause some distortion. The axes might not exactly match the data aspect ratio, plot box aspect ratio, and camera-view angle values stored in the DataAspectRatio, PlotBoxAspectRatio, and CameraViewAngle properties. The “stretch-to-fill” behavior is enabled when the DataAspectRatioMode, PlotBoxAspectRatioMode, and CameraViewAngleMode properties of the Axes object are set to 'auto'.

If you specify the data aspect ratio, plot box aspect ratio, or camera-view angle, then the “stretch-to-fill” behavior is disabled. When the “stretch-to-fill” behavior is disabled, MATLAB makes the axes as large as possible within the available space and strictly adheres to the property values so that there is no distortion.

For example, this figure shows the same plot with and without the “stretch-to-fill” behavior enabled. The dotted line shows the available space as defined by the Position property. In both versions, the data aspect ratio, plot box aspect ratio, and camera-view angle values are the same. However, in the left plot, the stretching introduces some distortion.