Modify Figures in Live Scripts

You can modify figures interactively in the Live Editor. Use the provided tools to explore data and add formatting, annotations, or additional axes to your figures. Then, update your code to reflect changes using the generated code.

Explore Data

You can pan, zoom, and rotate a figure in your script using the tools that appear in the upper-right corner of the figure axes when you hover over the figure.

— Add data tips to display data values.
— Rotate the plot (3-D plots only).
— Pan the plot.
, — Zoom in and out of the plot.
— Undo all pan, zoom, and rotate actions and restore the original view of the plot.

To undo or redo an action, click or at the upper right corner of the toolstrip.

Note

When you open a saved live script, appears next to each output figure, indicating that the interactive tools are not available yet. To make these tools available, run the live script.
The interactive tools are not available for invisible axes.

Suppose that you want to explore the health information for 100 different patients. Create a live script called patients.mlx and add code that loads the data and adds a scatter plot that shows the height versus weight of two groups of patients, female and male. Run the code by going to the Live Editor tab and clicking Run.

load patients

figure
Gender = categorical(Gender);
scatter(Height(Gender=='Female'),Weight(Gender=='Female'));
hold on
scatter(Height(Gender=='Male'),Weight(Gender=='Male'));
hold off

Explore the points where the patient height is 64 inches. Select the button and click one of the data points where height is 64. MATLAB^® zooms into the figure.

Update Code with Figure Changes

When modifying output figures in live scripts, changes to the figure are not automatically added to the script. With each interaction, MATLAB generates the code needed to reproduce the interactions and displays this code either underneath or to the right of the figure. Use the Update Code button to add the generated code to your script. This ensures that the interactions are reproduced the next time you run the live script.

For example, in the live script patients.mlx, after zooming in on patients with a height of 64, click the Update Code button. MATLAB adds the generated code after the line containing the code for creating the plot.

xlim([61.31 69.31])
ylim([116.7 183.3])

If MATLAB is unable to determine where to place the generated code, the Update Code button is disabled. This occurs, for example, if you modify the code without running the script again. In this case, use the Copy button to copy the generated code into the clipboard. You then can paste the code into your script at the appropriate location.

Add Formatting and Annotations

In addition to exploring the data, you can format and annotate your figures interactively by adding titles, labels, legends, grid lines, arrows, and lines. To add an item, first select the desired figure. Then, go to the Figure tab and, in the Annotations section, select one of the available options. Use the down arrow on the right side of the section to display all available annotations. To add a formatting or annotation option to your favorites, click the star at the top right of the desired annotation button. To undo or redo a formatting or annotation action, click or at the upper right corner of the toolstrip.

Annotation options include:

Title — Add a title to the axes. To modify an existing title, click the existing title and enter the modified text.
X-Label, Y-Label — Add a label to the axes. To modify an existing label, click the existing label and enter the modified text.
Legend — Add a legend to the figure. To modify the existing legend descriptions, click the existing descriptions and enter the modified text. Select Remove Legend from the Annotations section to remove the legend from the axes.
Colorbar — Add a color bar legend to the figure. Select Remove Colorbar from the Annotations section to remove the color bar legend from the axes.
Grid, X-Grid, Y-Grid — Add grid lines to the figure. Select Remove Grid from the Annotations section to remove all the grid lines from the axes.
Line, Arrow, Text Arrow, Double Arrow — Add a line or arrow annotation to the figure. Draw the arrow from tail to head. To move an existing annotation, click the annotation to select it and drag it to the desired location. Press the Delete key to delete the selected annotation.

Note

Adding formatting and annotations using the Figure tab is not supported for invisible axes.

For example, suppose that you want to add formatting and annotations to the figure in patients.mlx.

Add a title — In the Annotations section, select Title. A blue rectangle appears prompting you to enter text. Type the text Weight vs. Height and press Enter.
Add X and Y Labels — In the Annotations section, select X-Label. A blue rectangle appears prompting you to enter text. Type the text Height and press Enter. Select Y-Label. A blue rectangle appears prompting you to enter text. Type the text Weight and press Enter.
Add a legend — In the Annotations section, select Legend. A legend appears at the top right corner of the axes. Click the data1 description in the legend and replace the text with Female. Click the data2 description in the legend and replace the text with Male. Press Enter.
Add grid lines — In the Annotations section, select Grid. Grid lines appear in the axes.
Add an arrow annotation — In the Annotations section, select Text Arrow. Drawing the arrow from tail to head, position the arrow on the scatter plot pointing to the lightest patient. Enter the text Lightest Patient and press Enter
Update the code — In the selected figure, click the Update Code button. The live script now contains the code needed to reproduce the figure changes.
```
grid on
legend({'Female','Male'})
title('Weight vs Height')
xlabel('Height')
ylabel('Weight')
annotation('textarrow',[0.455 0.3979],[0.3393 0.13],'String','Lightest Patient');
```

Add and Modify Multiple Subplots

You can combine multiple plots by creating subplots in a figure. To add multiple subplots to your figure, use the Subplot button to divide the figure into a grid of subplots. First, select the desired figure. Then, go to the Figure tab and choose a subplot layout using the Subplot button. You only can add additional subplots to a figure if the figure contains one subplot. If a figure contains multiple subplots, the Subplot button is disabled.

For example, suppose that you want to compare the blood pressure of smoking and non-smoking patients. Create a live script called patients_smoking.mlx and add code that loads the health information for 100 different patients.

load patients

Run the code by going to the Live Editor tab and clicking Run.

Add a scatter plot that shows the systolic blood pressure of patients that smoke versus the systolic blood pressure of patients that do not smoke. Run the code.

figure
scatter(Age(Smoker==1),Systolic(Smoker==1));
hold on
scatter(Age(Smoker==0),Systolic(Smoker==0));
hold off

In the Figure tab, select Subplot and choose the layout for two horizontal graphs.

In the newly created figure, click the Update Code button. The live script now contains the code needed to reproduce the two subplots.

subplot(2,1,1,gca)
subplot(2,1,2)

Add a scatter plot that shows the diastolic blood pressure of patients that smoke versus the diastolic blood pressure of patients that do not smoke. Run the code.

scatter(Age(Smoker==1),Diastolic(Smoker==1));
hold on
scatter(Age(Smoker==0),Diastolic(Smoker==0));
hold off

Add formatting:

Add titles to each subplot — In the Annotations section, select Title. A blue rectangle appears in each subplot prompting you to enter text. Type the text Systolic Blood Pressure of Smokers vs Non-Smokers in the first subplot and Diastolic Blood Pressure of Smokers vs Non-Smokers in the second subplot and press Enter.
Add grid lines to each subplot — In the Annotations section, select Grid. An Add Grid button appears on each subplot. Click the Add Grid button on each subplot. Grid lines appear in both subplots.
Update the code — In the selected figure, click the Update Code button. The live script now contains the code needed to reproduce the figure changes.
```
subplot(2,1,1)
grid on
title('Systolic Blood Pressure of Smokers vs Non-Smokers')
subplot(2,1,2)
grid on
title('Diastolic Blood Pressure of Smokers vs Non-Smokers')
```

Save and Print Figure

At any point during figure modification, you can choose to save or print the figure for future use.

Click the button in the upper-right corner of the output. This opens the figure in a separate figure window.
1. To save the figure — Select File > Save As. For more information on saving figures, see Save Plot as Image or Vector Graphics File or Save Figure to Reopen in MATLAB Later.
2. To print the figure — Select File > Print. For more information on printing figures, see Print Figure from File Menu.

Note

Any changes made to the figure in the separate figure window are not reflected in the live script. Similarly, any changes made to the figure in the live script are not reflected in the open figure window.

Documentation