Axes box incompletely copied to clipboard

I am trying to put a red box around an image, like the following, and then copy/paste into a PowerPoint file.

imagesc(ones);hax=gca;
set(hax.XAxis,'Color','r','LineWidth',8)
set(hax.YAxis,'Color','r','LineWidth',8);
xticks([]);
yticks([]);

When rendered in a Matlab figure window, it looks fine. However, when I copy it to PowerPoint using,

copygraphics(gcf, 'BackgroundColor', 'none', 'ContentType', 'vector');

or just the Copy Figure option from the figure Edit menu, the copied figure has a small chunk missing from the upper-left corner. Is there a remedy for this?

[Matt J]

export_fig from the File Exchange seems to be able to copy the figure gracefully to the clipboard.

imagesc(ones);hax=gca;
set(hax.XAxis,'Color','r','LineWidth',6)
set(hax.YAxis,'Color','r','LineWidth',6);
xticks([]);
yticks([]);
axis image

export_fig(hax,'-transparent','-clipboard')

[Matt J]

Unfortunately, figure transparency is not preserved with the -clipboard switch :-(

Answer 1

[Yair Altman]

@Matt J export_fig(gcf,'-transparent','-clipboard') v3.28 now supports figure transparency for image fomats as well as EMF (where transparency was already supported in previous releases).

Please report export_fig issues on GitHub from now on, not in a FEX or Answers comment - I nearly missed this and only saw it by chance.

[Matt J]

Great news, Yair!

Answer 2

[Kevin Holly]

Have you tried getframe?

h = getframe(hax)
Image = h.CData;

You can save the Image to PowerPoint as shown below (Note, you will need to adjust the placement and size of the image within the PowerPoint):

Method was taken from script attached to the answer found here: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/99150-is-there-an-example-of-using-matlab-to-create-powerpoint-slides?s_tid=ta_ans_results

%% Open PowerPoint as a COM Automation server
h = actxserver('PowerPoint.Application')

uiwait(msgbox('Select folder to save PowerPoint'))
folder = uigetdir;


% Show the PowerPoint window
h.Visible = 1;
h.Help

%% ADD PRESENTATION
% View the methods that can be invoked
h.Presentation.invoke
% Add a presentation via "Add" method
Presentation = h.Presentation.Add

%% ADD SLIDES
% View the methods that can be invoked
Presentation.Slides.invoke

% Add a slide via "Add" method
% IF USING OFFICE 2003, use these commands:
% % Slide1 = Presentation.Slides.Add(1,'ppLayoutBlank')
% % Slide2 = Presentation.Slides.Add(2,'ppLayoutBlank')

% IF USING OFFICE 2007, use these commands:
blankSlide = Presentation.SlideMaster.CustomLayouts.Item(1);
Slide1 = Presentation.Slides.AddSlide(1,blankSlide);
Slide2 = Presentation.Slides.AddSlide(1,blankSlide);

%% GENERATE MATLAB IMAGES
figure;
image(Image)
print('-dpng','-r150',fullfile(folder,'test1.png'))

%% ADD IMAGES TO SLIDES WITH TITLES
% Note: Change the image file full path names to where you save them
Image1 = Slide1.Shapes.AddPicture(fullfile(folder,'test1.png'),'msoFalse','msoTrue',100,20,200,500)

Title1 = Slide1.Shapes.AddTextbox('msoTextOrientationHorizontal',200,10,200,70)
Title1.TextFrame.TextRange.Text = 'Image 1'

%% SAVE PRESENTATION
% Note: Change the presentation full path name to where you save it
Presentation.SaveAs(fullfile(folder,'ExamplePresentation.ppt'))

%% Close PowerPoint as a COM Automation server
h.Quit;
h.delete;

[Matt J]

Thanks Kevin,

That does indeed get rid of the artifact in the upper-left corner (and is also a nice illustration of the fancy things you can do with automatic PowerPoint generation). However, I would ideally like to have a solution that sends the image to the clipboard, so that it can be pasted into other environments as well.