How do I change position of titles and subtitles of subplots?

I attached a screenshot of my plot.

I would like to put on the left (instead of above) the titles (Currents at -70mv, -50, -30 and -10) of the four subplots on the left; on the other hand, I would like to put on the right (instead of above) the titles (Currents at -60mv, -40, -20 and 0) of the four subplots on the right. This is to save space and delete some of the blank space between the subplots.

As for the subtitle ("I is 2 times slower than E"), I'd like to have only one instead of eight, possibly above all the subplots in the centre.

This is how I'm doing now (there's another for loop "for rat = 1:colnum2" outside here but it's not relevant for this question):

    for vol = 1:colnum
        subplot(4,2,vol);
        plot(t_plot, currents(:,hh:zz), 'linewidth',2); legend('IPSC', 'EPSC', 'CPSC');
        str = sprintf('Currents at %d mV ', Vm(1,vol));
        title(str)
        subtitle(['I is ', num2str(ratio(rat)), ' times slower than E']) 
        xlabel('Time(msec)', 'fontsize', 7)
        ylabel('Microamperes (uA)', 'fontsize', 7);
        hh = hh + niter;
        zz = zz + niter;
    end
    

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Adam Danz]

Starting in r2020b you can set the TitleHorizontalAlignment property of the axes to specify the justification (left|right|center).

There are similar properties for the xlabel and ylabel, too. See this Community Hightlight for a review.

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/discussions/highlights/133180

[dpb]

Kewl. I'm on R2019b.

Didn't fix unalterable position for the SGTITLE() by any chance, did they?

[dpb]

With this, above could be

...
for i=1:8
  hAx(i)=subplot(4,2,i);
  hT(i)=title(str{i});
  hAx(i).TitleHorizontalAlignment=hposn{mod(i+1,2)+1};
end
...

perhaps a little cleaner.

[Adam Danz]

It looks like sgtitle positions are still not editable.

Another alternative:

for i=1:8
  hAx(i)=subplot(4,2,i);
  title(str{i});
end
set(hAx(1:2:end),'TitleHorizontalAlignment', 'Left')
set(hAx(2:2:end),'TitleHorizontalAlignment', 'Right')

[dpb]

Yeah, good idea to fix up after the fact; requires set since dot notation won't accept arrays.

You can move sgtitle() around on the figure with the hidden properties so the on-screen version looks as modified; "SaveAs" causes the position to be overwritten, though. I didn't pursue any further to see if could manage to stop that with futzing with callbacks, etc., ...

[evelyn]

how to change 'sgtitle' from top to bottom?

[Walter Roberson]

@evelyn

sgtitle() returns a Text object. You can adjust the position of the Text object. It might take some playing with the coordinates, unless you set the Units property to 'normalized' and then use normalized coordinates.

[evelyn]

thank you for your reply. How to change the position?

sgt = sgtitle('(a)')

sgt = 
  Text ((a)) with properties:

         String: '(a)'
       FontSize: 13
     FontWeight: 'normal'
       FontName: 'Helvetica'
          Color: [0 0 0]
    Interpreter: 'tex'

  Use GET to show all properties

sgt.Position

Unrecognized method, property, or field 'Position' for class 'matlab.graphics.illustration.subplot.Text'.

[Adam Danz]

@evelyn I suggest you use tiledlayout which supports global titles and labels.

You can use xlabel to assign a title to the bottom of the figure.

tcl = tiledlayout(2,2); 
nexttile
title('a')

nexttile
title('b')

nexttile
title('c')

nexttile
title('d')

t = title(tcl,'Global title','FontSize', 20); 
xlabel(tcl,'Global title on botton','FontSize', 20)

[evelyn]

thank you for your reply! I think that is what I need.

Is there any way to add title to the bottem of each subplot?

[Adam Danz]

You could use the xlabel function or text() but if the axes limits update, the relative text position may change.

Answer 2

[dpb]

Try

str=compose('Currents at %d mV ', [-70:10:0]);
hposn={'left','right'}; 
figure
for i=1:8
  hAx(i)=subplot(4,2,i);
  hT(i)=title(str{i},'Position',[mod(i+1,2) 1.03],'horizontalAlignment',hposn{mod(i+1,2)+1});
end
hSG=sgtitle('I is 2 times slower than E','fontsize',9);
hNC=hSG.NodeChildren.Children(2);
hNC.Position(2)=0.825;

Again, TMW got too clever for their own good; the 'Position' property of the text object that is the subplot grid title is hidden as is the text object itself buried deep inside the returned composite handle object. Consequently, moving it around a little is a pain.

On a default figure here, the y-position turns out to be 0.88; that appears to high for the effect I think you are looking for; the 0.825 is an empirical adjustment; also while the text is centered over the entire figure horizontally, it also appears somewhat off center owing to the placement of the axes inside the area; you can fiddle with positions of each of the subplots to close them up as desired and then adjust as needs be.

The above for just default produced:

ADDENDUM: Just realized that when saving the figure, the SGTITLE() text position gets overwritten back to default. That appears to be unavoidable; you might end up having to just use TEXT() directly instead, altho the locations of the titles are easy enough to handle.

You might want to investigate the tiledlayout instead, it may give you more nearly the spacings between plots you're looking for without as much mucking around as subplot requires. I've not messed with it much so can't say for sure...