exportgraphics does not save exactly what I see in the plot

Hi,

I am new to Matlab. Let me first explain what I want to do, and then my problem. First, I want to plot a line with two shaded intervals around it (basically, the impulse response with two confidence intervals). After reading some posts in this forum, I managed to do it (thanks a lot, Matlab community). Probably that is not the best way (I plot one shaded region over another), but it seems to work. Below I provide an example.

% Create values to plot
IR = [1 2 5; 5 3 8; 2 2 5]';
INF = IR-0.50;
SUP = IR+0.50;
INF2 = IR-1;
SUP2 = IR+1;

% Define the rows and columns for the subplots (you choose)
row = 2;
col = 2;

% Define a timeline
nsteps = size(IR, 1);
steps = 1:1:nsteps;
x_axis = zeros(1,nsteps);
x = steps; 

% Options for plot
opt_plot.marker = 'o';
opt_plot.linecol = [13, 54, 84]./255;
opt_plot.swathecol = [138, 178, 212]./255;
opt_plot.linewidth = 2;
opt_plot.alpha = 0.5;
opt_plot.marker_x = '--k';
opt_plot.linewidth_x = 0.5;

FigSize(26, 24)

% var1
ii = 1;
y = IR(:,ii)'; 
ci1_u = SUP(:,ii)';
ci1_l = INF(:,ii)';
ci2_u = SUP2(:,ii)';
ci2_l = INF2(:,ii)';
subplot(row,col,1);
plot(x, y, 'color', opt_plot.linecol, 'Marker', opt_plot.marker, 'MarkerFaceColor', opt_plot.linecol, 'LineWidth', opt_plot.linewidth); hold on
patch([x fliplr(x)], [ci1_l fliplr(ci1_u)], opt_plot.swathecol, 'FaceAlpha', opt_plot.alpha, 'EdgeColor', 'none')
patch([x fliplr(x)], [ci2_l fliplr(ci2_u)], opt_plot.swathecol, 'FaceAlpha', opt_plot.alpha, 'EdgeColor', 'none')
plot(x, y, 'color', opt_plot.linecol, 'Marker', opt_plot.marker, 'MarkerFaceColor', opt_plot.linecol, 'LineWidth', opt_plot.linewidth); hold on % the same code line as above
plot(x_axis, opt_plot.marker_x, 'LineWidth', opt_plot.linewidth_x); hold on
xlim([1 nsteps]);
title('var1','FontSize',11); 
set(gca, 'Layer', 'top');

% var2
ii = 2;
y = IR(:,ii)'; 
ci1_u = SUP(:,ii)';
ci1_l = INF(:,ii)';
ci2_u = SUP2(:,ii)';
ci2_l = INF2(:,ii)';
subplot(row,col,2);
plot(x, y, 'color', opt_plot.linecol, 'Marker', opt_plot.marker, 'MarkerFaceColor', opt_plot.linecol, 'LineWidth', opt_plot.linewidth); hold on
patch([x fliplr(x)], [ci1_l fliplr(ci1_u)], opt_plot.swathecol, 'FaceAlpha', opt_plot.alpha, 'EdgeColor', 'none')
patch([x fliplr(x)], [ci2_l fliplr(ci2_u)], opt_plot.swathecol, 'FaceAlpha', opt_plot.alpha, 'EdgeColor', 'none')
plot(x, y, 'color', opt_plot.linecol, 'Marker', opt_plot.marker, 'MarkerFaceColor', opt_plot.linecol, 'LineWidth', opt_plot.linewidth); hold on % the same code line as above
plot(x_axis, opt_plot.marker_x, 'LineWidth', opt_plot.linewidth_x); hold on
xlim([1 nsteps]);
title('var2','FontSize',11); 
set(gca, 'Layer', 'top');

% var3
ii = 3;
y = IR(:,ii)'; 
ci1_u = SUP(:,ii)';
ci1_l = INF(:,ii)';
ci2_u = SUP2(:,ii)';
ci2_l = INF2(:,ii)';
subplot(row,col,3);
plot(x, y, 'color', opt_plot.linecol, 'Marker', opt_plot.marker, 'MarkerFaceColor', opt_plot.linecol, 'LineWidth', opt_plot.linewidth); hold on
patch([x fliplr(x)], [ci1_l fliplr(ci1_u)], opt_plot.swathecol, 'FaceAlpha', opt_plot.alpha, 'EdgeColor', 'none')
patch([x fliplr(x)], [ci2_l fliplr(ci2_u)], opt_plot.swathecol, 'FaceAlpha', opt_plot.alpha, 'EdgeColor', 'none')
plot(x, y, 'color', opt_plot.linecol, 'Marker', opt_plot.marker, 'MarkerFaceColor', opt_plot.linecol, 'LineWidth', opt_plot.linewidth); hold on % the same code line as above
plot(x_axis, opt_plot.marker_x, 'LineWidth', opt_plot.linewidth_x); hold on
xlim([1 nsteps]);
title('var3','FontSize',11); 
set(gca, 'Layer', 'top');

After runing it, I get the following plot in Matlab.

But when I use exportgraphics to export the plot in PDF format (by using the code below), it does not save exactly what I see in the plot.

% Save
exportgraphics(gcf,'example.pdf', 'ContentType', 'vector');
clf('reset')

To be more precise, the plot contains the two shaded intervals (as you can see in the image above), but exportgraphics saves a PDF file with only one shaded interval (image below).

Can anyone help me, please? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

[Fangjun Jiang]

print('-image','-dpdf','example.pdf')

or

exportgraphics(gcf,'example.pdf', 'ContentType', 'image')

[Vitor]

Thanks.