Why am I not able to copy and paste a map figure into Word from the Mapping Toolbox 1.2 (R12 and R12.1)?

If I create a map using the Mapping Toolbox 1.2 and try to paste it into Word, the map is a bunch of black lines. I have chosen the "Word" settings using the "Figure Copy Template" from "File-->Preferences...". The following code produces a sample map that aids to reproduce the problem:

load korea

worldmap korea

mesh(map, maplegend)

demcmap(map)

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This bug has been fixed in Release 14 Service Pack 2 (R14SP2). For previous releases, read below for any possible workarounds:

This is a bug in MATLAB.

One way to work around this problem is to export the figure as a bitmap. You can do this by choosing the option in "File-->Preferences...-->Figure Copy Template-->Copy Options-->Clipboard Format-->Bitmap", then selecting Copy Figure from the figure's Edit menu.

You could also use the following code to copy the figure to the clipboard.

print -dbitmap

Now you can paste the map from the clipboard into your Word document.