How to make only x-axis invisible (y-axis stays visible)?

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I have two axes (top, bottom) in a GUI. I do not want the x-axis of the top ghraph to be present (because it is the same as the bottom x-axis). I could not find how to handle separately the x and y axis visibility.
Csaba

Answers (11)

Muhammad Shah
Muhammad Shah on 17 Dec 2018
This Question is posted in 2013, but still last week got more than a thousand views, and I also needed this info, and I got very helpful information in this post, but surprizingly later I got an other solution in Matlab documentation and that was not yet here, and it is probably the smalest code, and I tested it and it worked nice, so I decided to addd it, here it is:
axis off ;
And thats it your axes are gone.
  2 Comments
Csaba
Csaba on 20 Dec 2018
Dear Muhammad,
First, this solution was already published (see above).
Second, in 2013 this command did not exist.
Luca Nagel
Luca Nagel on 8 Jul 2021
Dear Muhammad, thank you this was really helpful!

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Wayne King
Wayne King on 23 May 2013
without seeing your code, a simple way is just to set the 'xtick' property to []
plot(randn(100,1));
set(gca,'xtick',[])
  3 Comments
Wayne King
Wayne King on 23 May 2013
Does this get closer?
subplot(211)
plot(randn(100,1))
set(gca,'xtick',[]);
set(gca,'xcolor',[1 1 1])
subplot(212)
plot(randn(100,1))
Csaba
Csaba on 24 May 2013
Sorry, no. It makes the axis white but I have a picture behind the graph. So white axis (and actually any colors) are visible in my case. I do not want the x-axis at all.
Csaba

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Johann Riemensberger
Johann Riemensberger on 27 Oct 2016
Hi, axes('Color','none','XColor','none');
works for me Bests Johann
  2 Comments
Csaba
Csaba on 25 Dec 2018
It does not work on the Matlab 2013. So I cannot accept this answer.

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Jorge Mariscal Harana
Jorge Mariscal Harana on 5 Jul 2017
Edited: Walter Roberson on 27 May 2023
Hi,
Try:
ax1.YAxis.Visible = 'off'; % remove y-axis
ax1.XAxis.Visible = 'off'; % remove x-axis
Hope that helps, J
  3 Comments
Ankit Labh
Ankit Labh on 27 May 2023
How about removing only one y axis (say right side) and not both?
Thanks
Florens Helfferich
Florens Helfferich on 27 Nov 2023
@Ankit Labh ax1.Box = false;
This removes both the top and right side axes, but not the left and bottom axes.

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Kyle Henderson
Kyle Henderson on 3 Dec 2017
xticks([])

Rini Varghese
Rini Varghese on 9 Oct 2018
Edited: Rini Varghese on 14 Apr 2022
Try the following:
h = gca;
h.XAxis.Visible = 'off';
  2 Comments
Abdul Basith Ashraf
Abdul Basith Ashraf on 11 Nov 2019
This is better
If I set
set(gca,'xtick',[])
the grid will also vanish.
But with your code, the grid stays . Thanks

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John Barber
John Barber on 24 May 2013
This solution might be overkill, but you can get that effect with my File Exchange program 'oaxes', available here: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/30018. The following will show only a y axis at the left edge of the plot:
oa = oaxes;
oa.XAxisLine = 'off';
oa.XLabel = '';
oa.YLabel = '';
oa.Arrow = 'off';
oa.Origin = [-Inf -Inf 0];
% If you want the normal y label to be visible:
ylabel('my y axis...')
set(get(gca,'YLabel'),'visible','on')
This should get you close to what you are looking for. The oaxes documentation will give you more information about the properties used in the example above, including an explanation of the difference between the oaxes 'YLabel' property which is set to empty above, and the parent axes' 'YLabel' text object. The main difference in appearance I am getting is that the oaxes ticks are bidirectional (they extend out on both sides from the axes line), while a normal axes has ticks that only extend to one side. Currently, there is no way to change this in oaxes, but I might add it in a future release.
-John

José-Luis
José-Luis on 24 May 2013
Edited: José-Luis on 24 May 2013
h = axes;
plot(h,rand(10,1));
pos = get(h,'Position');
new_h = axes('Position',pos);
linkaxes([h new_h],'y');
pos(3) = eps; %Edited here
set(new_h,'Position',pos,'XTick',[],'XTickLabel',[]);
set(h,'Visible','off');
  4 Comments
Csaba
Csaba on 27 May 2013
Yes, it works, although it is a workaround and not a solution.
Jan
Jan on 24 Nov 2017
[EDITED, moved from flag] andreas jensen wrote:
Overly complicated and doesn't work

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Chintan
Chintan on 17 May 2014
Turn Box off, it usually works.

Martin
Martin on 24 Mar 2016
I solved something similar that way:
set(axis_h,'XColor',axis_h.Parent.Color);
-Martin

Steven Lord
Steven Lord on 27 Nov 2023
This wasn't an option when the question was originally asked, but now you can change the Visible property of the appropriate ruler object that is part of the axes. Compare the axes without the ruler being changed:
ax = axes;
plot(ax, 1:10);
with one that does have the ruler turned off.
figure
ax2 = axes;
plot(ax2, 1:10);
% Get the ruler for the X axis
x = ax2.XAxis;
% Make it invisible
x.Visible = 'off';

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