How can I label my graphs as (a), (b), (c) etc in subplot matlab?

655 views (last 30 days)
I want to describe the graphs in figure caption by referencing them as (a), (b) (c) etc

Accepted Answer

Image Analyst
Image Analyst on 13 Dec 2018
Use subplot() and title().
% Plot (a) plot.
subplot(3, 1, 1);
plot(1:10, 'r-');
title('(a)', 'FontSize', 15);
% Plot (b) plot.
subplot(3, 1, 2);
plot(10*sin(0:.1:10), 'b-', 'LineWidth', 2);
grid on;
title('(b)', 'FontSize', 15);
% Plot (a) plot.
subplot(3, 1, 3);
plot(cos(1:10), 'k*', 'MarkerSize', 15, 'LineWidth', 2);
grid on;
title('(c)', 'FontSize', 15);
0000 Screenshot.png
Or you could use xlabel() if you want to put the letters under the x axis, or text() if you want to place them wherever you want.
  7 Comments
Sterling Baird
Sterling Baird on 19 Oct 2020
I think Image Analyst's solution may need a bit more to get left alignment.

Sign in to comment.

More Answers (4)

Sterling Baird
Sterling Baird on 21 Oct 2020
Edited: Sterling Baird on 21 Oct 2020
Personally, I've liked using:
nIDs = 4;
alphabet = ('a':'z').';
chars = num2cell(alphabet(1:nIDs));
chars = chars.';
charlbl = strcat('(',chars,')'); % {'(a)','(b)','(c)','(d)'}
text(0.025,0.95,charlbl{1},'Units','normalized','FontSize',12)
This works fine for me for tiled layouts, and does a decent job for scientific figures.
  4 Comments
Image Analyst
Image Analyst on 13 Apr 2022
@Wiqas Ahmad Try using text() or put it into the title or axes labels using sprintf() and title() or xlabel() or ylabel().
Sanita Dhaubanjar
Sanita Dhaubanjar on 2 May 2023
You can make the label generation shorter using:
charlbl = compose("(%s)",('a':'z').');

Sign in to comment.


madhan ravi
madhan ravi on 13 Dec 2018
Edited: madhan ravi on 13 Dec 2018
Use legend()
legend('(a)','(b)','(c)')
  1 Comment
Shikhar Saxena
Shikhar Saxena on 13 Dec 2018
No, legend is different. I want to label each graph as a,b,c etc. Like see in figure below generated through subplot function matlab, I want to label three graphs as a, b and c. try.png

Sign in to comment.


Alex Ryabov
Alex Ryabov on 7 Jul 2021
Edited: Alex Ryabov on 7 Jul 2021
I hope this function will help
fg = figure(1);
clf
subplot(2, 2, 1)
subplot(2, 2, 2)
subplot(2, 1, 2)
legend
colorbar
AddLetters2Plots(fg, 'HShift', 0, 'VShift', 0, 'Direction', 'TopDown')

Dion Wilde
Dion Wilde on 17 May 2023
Edited: Dion Wilde on 18 May 2023
Personally i found my optimum with the following solution:
ax=gca;
% read out the position of the axis in the unit "characters"
set(ax,'Units','characters'); a=get(ax,'Position');
% this determines the type of the plot
if isequal(get(ax,'View'),[0 90]) % this is used for 2D plots
str_place=2;
else % this is used for 3D plots, in this case also all other plots
str_place=-2;
end
% this sets an 'a)' right at the top left of the axes
text(ax,0,a(end)+str_place,'a)','Units','characters')
I specifically used the units "characters" here, because it consistently sets the character above the axes indepently of the actual size of the axis. The latter is difficult if not impossible to do with "units", "normalized".
  2 Comments
Sreeraj T
Sreeraj T on 18 May 2023
What does "end" in the last line indicates? It ends what?
Dion Wilde
Dion Wilde on 18 May 2023
my bad, i copy pasted it from my own code. I deleted the "end".

Sign in to comment.

Tags

Products


Release

R2017a

Community Treasure Hunt

Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!

Start Hunting!