What is the real size of the fonts in a figure?

I set fontsize=12pt when plotting a figure, but it definity NOT 12pt, it is bigger. I have to make sure it is 12pt, because I have to put it in my paper. The code is:

figure; set(gcf,'Position',[100 100 400 400]);

set(gca,'fontsize',12,'fontname','times');

The size of figure is carefully calculated, which should be 400ptx400pt. When I put the figure in word. the fontsize of the figure is bigger than 12pt. How to fix it?

[Jan]

The size of the figure is 400x400 pixels, not points. How large it is after importing it to word depends on how you export the contents: As EPS or as screen shot. You did not explain this important detail yet.

[Hongwei Li]

As svg or emf, no margins. The fontsize=12pt should have the height of 0.423cm, so when I put the fighre in word, I set the width: 0.423x400/12=14.1cm, I thought it would be consistent with word. But it turned out the fonts in figure are bigger, like 18pt in word.

Now I know I was wrong, because differnt monitor gives different layout of figure, how to make sure the fonts in the figure consistent with word?

[Walter Roberson]

How are you doing the saving as svg or emf?

Have you set the figure PaperPosition and PaperUnits properties ?

[Hongwei Li]

I printed the figure using the code:

exportgraphics(gcf,'F_11.emf','ContentType','vector');

I also tried:

set(gcf,'renderer','Painters'); print -dmeta F_11; 

or:

set(gcf,'renderer','Painters'); print -dsvg F_11;

These saved files had same layout and fontsize.

I am not sure about paperposition, but I did set this:

set(gcf,'Position',[100 100 400 400]);

I did not set the paperunits, I thint the default is pixels. I wrote my own function to remove the margins around the figure, I have checked that the size of the printed emf file is 400x400 with no margins, as expected. But when I put the figure in word and set the width as 0.423x400/12=14.1cm, the fontsize in figure is bigger than 12pt, might be 18pt.

That was on my windows computer (win10, 23.8inch, 1920X1080). I also have a a macbook (Big Sur, 15.4inch, 1680x1050), I have installed the lastest Matlab version :2021a update3 on both machine. But the same codes printed different layouts of figure. The fontsizes were too small on macbook. What I want is the fontsize in the figure be consistent with word.

I will try to use centimeter unit later.

[Hongwei Li]

Problem solved. I used the code:

figure; set(gcf,'Units','centimeter','Position',[5 5 14 14]);

In word, I set the width of the figure as 14cm. Done, the fontsize is exactly 12pt. As I tried, it works when monitor resultion, size change. Macbook and windows pc will print a little different layouts, but the fontsize is exactly 12pt in word.