Saving multiple figures to a single PDF file

Hi,

I would like to save several figures in a single PDF. I cannot install any third party software on my computer. Therefore, I can only use Matlab codes/functions. Is there a way appending figures in a PDF can be done fully in Matlab? I am using Matlab R2019a

Thank you!

[Walter Roberson]

It is possible. You would need to add the new data and a new xref table and new trailer to the end of the file. See https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topic/pdf-file-format-basic-structure/ for information about the structure of the file. It might take a bit of work.

There are Java-based PDF libraries; https://www.datasciencelearner.com/top-java-pdf-libraries-read-data-scientist/ and those could be called from MATLAB. I do not know if that would count as "installing third party software" for your purposes.

[ardeshir moinian]

Thank you for your answer @Walter Roberson. It seems that there is an easier way of doing this and that is using the report generator in Matlab. One still needs to leard how to work with the report generator but it is easier than learning what exactly comprises a pdf file.

[Chunru]

An even simpler way is livescript.

[DGM]

Depending on what is accepted as saving "multiple figures to pdf", you might be able to get by quite simply. If you can accept one figure per page, then append_pdfs() works fine for me. The version I use is the one packaged with Yair Altman's export_fig() on the FEX:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/23629-export_fig

Given that print allows you to print a figure to a single-page pdf using the -dpdf option, all you need to do is do your figure setup (set paperunits, paperposition, etc) and print each figure to a pdf. At that point, you can use append_pdfs to concatenate the single pages into one.

Granted, that's a very simple pdf structure, but it technically is multiple figures to a single pdf. This is what I use for printing weekly network status logs to pdf.

Answer 1

[Pamudu Ranasinghe]

I think the easiest way is to write all your codes in MATLAB Live script. Then you have two ways to do that

1. Option 1 - Save Live scripts as PDF a Then your Plots and code both same as a single PDF
2. Option 2 - Same Live script as a word file and then if you don’t want the code, you can edit it through word processing software and save as a pdf there.