{"id":7950,"date":"2016-10-21T09:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T13:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/?p=7950"},"modified":"2016-10-18T09:18:44","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T13:18:44","slug":"write-your-figures-to-excel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2016\/10\/21\/write-your-figures-to-excel\/","title":{"rendered":"Write Your Figures to Excel"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n <\/p>\n

Sean<\/a>‘s pick this week is xlswritefig<\/tt><\/a> by Michelle Hirsch<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

<\/introduction><\/p>\n

One of my colleagues approached me earlier this week and asked me to help her with an Excel report that I’d created a few
\n months back. When I first created this report, I just did it manually thinking it was a one time thing. But, she wanted
\n to create the same report many times.\n <\/p>\n

My first question was: Does it have to be Excel or could I create Word or PowerPoint reports instead? I didn’t know her end
\n goal for the reports so figured it would be easier to automate reporting for those formats with MATLAB Report Generator<\/a>. However, Excel was a requirement.\n <\/p>\n

There were some data from a table and a few figures that needed to be written and fortunately no other formatting, e.g.
\n conditional formatting. The table was easy; a simple call to writetable<\/tt><\/a> sufficed.\n <\/p>\n

But how to export a figure? I didn’t want to deal with the Excel API myself, so I went to the File Exchange and searched
\n for “figure to Excel”. There were a few results, but Michelle’s xlswritefig<\/tt> seemed to have the most options and it worked on first try!\n <\/p>\n

Here’s some random data for next 24 hours.<\/p>\n

nexthour = dateshift(datetime('now'<\/span>), 'end'<\/span>, 'hour'<\/span>);\r\nTime = (nexthour:hours(1):(datetime('now'<\/span>)+hours(24))).';\r\nData = cumsum(rand(size(Time)) - 0.2);<\/pre>\n
plot(Time, Data)\r\nxticks(Time(1:3:end))\r\nxtickangle(-45)\r\nxlabel('Next 24 Hours'<\/span>)\r\nylabel('Randomness'<\/span>)\r\ntitle('A Plot'<\/span>)<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Write to Excel.<\/p>\n
writetable(table(Time, Data), 'Results.xlsx'<\/span>, 'WriteVariableNames'<\/span>, true)\r\nxlswritefig(gcf, 'Results.xlsx'<\/span>, 'Sheet1'<\/span>, 'D2'<\/span>)<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
Comments<\/a><\/h3>\n
Does creating formatted reports from MATLAB interest you?  If so, what would you like to do?<\/p>\n
Give it a try and let us know what you think here<\/a> or leave a comment<\/a> for Michelle.\n   <\/p>\n
Plot the data. Note<\/b> that the convenience functions xticks<\/tt><\/a> and xtickangle<\/tt><\/a> along with many others are new in R2016b<\/a>!\n   <\/p>\n