Can I save my figure somewhere else on my computer besides the MATLAB folder? (Using Saveas)

The code I created is going to be turned into a stand alone program so others within my company can use it. One of the popup menus allows you to choose what kind of file you would like save the figure as, and this works perfectly since I have Matlab and it sends it to the folder. But now that I will be making it a stand alone program, where would the file be saved?, and can I change its destination? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

[Rik]

You are right that the documentation for saveas doesn't explicitly state that you can use a filename with an absolute or relative path, but you can.

f=figure(1);clf(1)
plot(rand(1,10))
if ~exist('new_folder','dir'),mkdir('new_folder');end
saveas(f,'new_folder\foo.png')

[MechE1]

What exactly is the'plot(rand(1,10))' for? Won't it just overlap my current figure?

[Dennis]

It's a random plot for presentation, you don't need that part.

[MechE1]

Thank you!

[MechE1]

Wait, This creates just another folder within my MATLAB folder. I wanted to know if it can be saved somewhere else besides there. Perhaps the desktop or documents within the PC. As I said this is a stand alone program so those who do not have MATLAB where would it be saved? I also had my variable 'graphName' as the second input of my saveas function.

 if savAs==2
    saveas(gcf,graphName,'eps') 
elseif savAs==3
    saveas(gcf,graphName,'epsc') 
elseif savAs==4 
    saveas(gcf,graphName,'eps2') 
... 
etc

Now that I have to do 'new_folder\graphName' it literally saves the graph as 'graphName' is there a way to overcome this as well??

[Rik]

It was just an example. That file name can contain three things:

1. Just a file name. In such a case it is saved in the current folder.
2. A relative path, just like my example. In that case the file is saved to the path relative to the current folder.
3. A full path. This will save your file anywhere on your computer where Matlab is allowed to write a file.

You can get the user to select a location with functions like uiputfile.

[MechE1]

Thank you for your assistance, it is very much appreciated!

Sorry, I'm trying to save the figure, how can I do that? I'm using uiputfile and every time it saves something it states that the file isn't found. It does not appear in the specified location either, only shows up up in my most recent files but cannot open.

[Stephen23]

" I'm using uiputfile and every time it saves something it states that the file isn't found."

uiputfile does not save any files. Its help states "Successful execution of uiputfile returns the name of a new or existing file that the user specifies. It does not create a file." You can use the filename and filepath with an appropriate function of your choice for saving data to file:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/data-import-and-export.html

Rik Wisselink's answer uses saveas to save data to a file. Note that you will need to use fullfile to generate the full filename, e.g.:

[fnm,fpt] = uiputfile(...);
...
saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm))

[MechE1]

Got it to work! Thank you. - Code that worked well;

 filter={'*.EPS Level 3 B&W';'*.EPS Level 3 Color';...
'*.EPS Level 2 B&W';'*.EPS Level 2 Color';'*.PS Level 3 B&W';...
'*.PS Level 3 Color';'*.PS Level 2 B&W';'*.PS Level 2 Color'...
    ;'*.EMF-Enhanced Metafile';'*.SVG-Scalable Vector Graphics)';'*.PDF'};

 [fnm,fpt,savAs]=uiputfile(filter,'Select file type and destination',graphName);
f=gcf;

 if savAs==1
    saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm),'eps') 
elseif savAs==2
    saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm),'epsc')
elseif savAs==3 
    saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm),'eps2') 
elseif savAs==4
    saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm),'epsc2') 
elseif savAs==5 
    saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm),'ps') 
elseif savAs==6
    saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm),'psc') 
elseif savAs==7 
    saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm),'ps2') 
elseif savAs==8
    saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm),'psc2') 
elseif savAs==9 
    saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm),'meta') 
elseif savAs==10
    saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm),'svg') 
elseif savAs==11
   saveas(f,fullfile(fpt,fnm),'pdf') 
end

[Stephen23]

You could use the index more effectively:

C = {...
    '*.eps',  'EPS Level 3 B&W';...
    '*.epsc', 'EPS Level 3 Color';...
    '*.eps2', 'EPS Level 2 B&W';...
    '*.epsc2','EPS Level 2 Color';...
    '*.ps',   'PS Level 3 B&W';...
    '*.psc',  'PS Level 3 Color';...
    '*.ps2',  'PS Level 2 B&W';...
    '*.psc2', 'PS Level 2 Color';...
    '*.meta', 'EMF-Enhanced Metafile';...
    '*.svg',  'SVG-Scalable Vector Graphics';...
    '*.pdf',  'PDF'};
[fnm,fpt,idx] = uiputfile(C,'Select file type and destination');
saveas(fig,fullfile(fpt,fnm),C{idx,1}(3:end))

Note the filters are in the first column, the second column contains the descriptions. Also you should also add a check if fnm is zero, which happens if the user closes the dialog box without selecting a file.

[MechE1]

Just switched over to this and is working great. On another note, any idea why my 3rd input for uiputfile (graphName) isnt working? For some reason instead of only placing the graph name as a suggested file name it does the following:

"(Name of my graph).EPS Lvl 3 B&W.EPS Lvl 3 B&W"

It must be something to do with the filter, but my code is exactly how I wrote in the comments. Pretty confused on this.

Just attached an image of what happens

[Rik]

From the doc:

The first column of the input filter cell array contains the file extensions, and the second contains the descriptions of the file types.

So you entered " .EPS Lvl 3 B&W " as the extension.