How to align position of titles in subplots?

Hi all,

I have the following problem as can be seen in the image below, where position of titles in the subplots is misaligned. I want them to be aligned and do not cover x labels of some of the plots above. This do not occur if I make a figure with just one row, the more rows rthe more misaligned it is.

The code to create this is as follows (just first three subplots) is below the figure. Can you help please? if possible, i would prefer not to align titles manually.

hfig = figure ('color','w');

subplot(531);  

h(1) = plot(bf(:,7),'LineWidth',1.2); hold on; grid on

Unrecognized function or variable 'bf'.

patch([x; flip(x)], [bf_high;  flip(bf_low)], 'b', 'FaceAlpha',0.2, 'EdgeColor','none');
title('A. Hip Y'); 
ax = gca; ax.TitleHorizontalAlignment = 'left';
ylabel('(°)');  box off

subplot (532); t31i.plot(); grid on; ylim([-5 5]);  
title('ML vs BF'); ax = gca; ax.TitleHorizontalAlignment = 'left'; 

subplot (533); t32i.plot(); grid on; ylim([-5 5]); 
title('ML vs CV');  ax = gca; ax.TitleHorizontalAlignment = 'left'; spmi.plot_p_values();

%remaining subplots as above

picturewidth = 10.5;
hw_ratio = 1.3;
set(findall(hfig, '-property', 'FontSize'),'FontSize', 8 );
fontname(hfig, 'Arial');
set(findall(hfig, '-property', 'Box'),'Box', 'off' );
set(hfig, 'Units', 'centimeters', 'Position',[ 3 3 picturewidth hw_ratio*picturewidth]);
pos = get(hfig, 'Position');
set(hfig, 'PaperPositionMode', 'Auto', 'PaperUnits', 'centimeters', 'PaperSize', [pos(3), pos(4)]);
align_Ylabels(figure(1))

[Matt J]

Your code doesn't run, see error messages above.

[dpb]

for i=1:15
  hAx(i)=subplot(5,3,i);
  plot(rand(10,1))
  title(num2str(i,'Figure %d'))
  hAx(i).TitleHorizontalAlignment='left';
end

It appears it has to do with ticks/tick labels; Originally, the above code looked to be fine but the couple of cases such as 1, 12, 14 didn't occur. While your code seems to always set the ylim, I'd look into that alspect. It may be you've uncovered a "feature".

Let's try the same exercise withouth the "Left" positioning...since I didn't save the opening can't reproduce the above RNV sequence so we'll make another response...

Answer 1

[dpb]

for i=1:15
  hAx(i)=subplot(5,3,i);
  plot(rand(10,1))
  title(num2str(i,'Figure %d'))
  %hAx(i).TitleHorizontalAlignment='left';
end

●

Well, that's interesting! It appears the spacing of the title above the axis is much more compact and remains at the same location with the default centered position regardless of whether the axis ticks match the limits or not -- see 3 above.

I think you have discovered a "quality of implementation" wart.

You might try the new replacement of tiledlayout and see if the symptoms go away.

[dpb]

t=tiledlayout(5,3,'TileSpacing','tight','Padding','tight');
for i=1:15
  hAx(i)=nexttile(t);
  plot(rand(10,1))
  title(num2str(i,'Figure %d'))
  hAx(i).TitleHorizontalAlignment='left';
end

Well, I guess it isn't too surprising to see the same symptom since the underlying axes are still the same thing. 4 and 8 here show the same phenomonon.

[Adam Danz]

Here's a reproducible version that sets figure size and rng (R2024b).

The title placement is adjusted when the upper y-tick extends beyond the plot box.

figure('Position',[100 100 1024 562])
rng default
t=tiledlayout(5,3,'TileSpacing','tight','Padding','tight');
for i=1:15
    hAx=nexttile(t);
    plot(rand(10,1))
    title(num2str(i,'Figure %d'))
    hAx.TitleHorizontalAlignment='left';
end

The title position would also be affected by adding a secondary label to the y-axis.

figure()
t = tiledlayout(1,2,'TileSpacing','tight','Padding','tight');
plot(nexttile(), rand(10,1))
title('Axes 1');
set(gca,TitleHorizontalAlignment='left');
plot(nexttile(), rand(10,1))
title('Axes 2');
set(gca,TitleHorizontalAlignment='left');
ysecondarylabel('x10')

Generally tiledlayout offers better handling of position than subplot. That should address the title/tick overlap. To address title position differences caused by y-ticks, ensure that your axes all have ticks at the upper limit (or lower limit if YDir is reversed). That can be achieved by setting ylim or ytick.

[Tomaszzz]

Thanks, tiledlayout does help, happy to accept the answer