How can I prevent scientific notation on my axes in MATLAB R2015b and later?

I would like to change the tick labels of my plot so they do not display in scientific notation.

If I use the "xticklabel" function to manually change the labels, they do not update automatically when I zoom or pan. How can I change the format of my tick labels in a way that is respected by zoom and pan?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

Starting in MATLAB R2015b, you can use axis ruler properties to customize the appearance of an individual axis. Please refer to the following examples for how you can remove scientific notation from your axis labels, in a way which is respected by zoom and pan.

In MATLAB R2016b and later:

>> h = plot(1:1000000, 1:1000000)
>> ax = ancestor(h, 'axes')
>> ax.XAxis.Exponent = 0
>> xtickformat('%.0f')

Setting the "Exponent" property of an axis to 0 removes the exponential notation common to all tick values. For more information, refer to the following documentation page:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/releases/R2019a/matlab/ref/matlab.graphics.axis.decorator.numericruler-properties.html#bun6izd-1-Exponent

The functions "xtickformat", "ytickformat", and "ztickformat" can then be used to customize the format of your tick labels. In this example, the format is set to fixed-point notation with zero decimal places, which removes the scientific notation from the individual tick labels. The following documentation page describes how to call the "xtickformat" function, and the additional formatting options which are available:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/xtickformat.html

In MATLAB R2015b and R2016a:

>> h = plot(1:1000000, 1:1000000)
>> ax = ancestor(h, 'axes')
>> ax.XAxis.Exponent = 0
>> ax.XAxis.TickLabelFormat = '%.0f'

In releases R2015b and R2016a, you can use the "TickLabelFormat" property of an axis to customize the format of your labels. For more information on this property, refer to the following documentation page:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/releases/R2019a/matlab/ref/matlab.graphics.axis.decorator.numericruler-properties.html#bun6izd-1-TickLabelFormat

[Walter Roberson]

Asking for the children of the figure and trying to set properties using dot notation would fail for graphs with more than one axes, which is very common (subplot for example.)

If your x or y are not vectors, so that the plot() call is generating multiple lines, then you could modify the solution to be:

h = plot(x, y);                   %hypothetically might generate multiple lines
ax = ancestor(h(1), 'axes');      %pick any one of them to locate the axes
ax.XAxis.Exponent = 0;
ax.XAxis.TickLabelFormat = '%.0f';

[Walter Roberson]

Slightly better would be to replace the last line with

ytickformat(ax, '%d')

[Walter Roberson]

I do not know why that is happening, but a workaround is

ax.XAxis.TickLabels = compose('%g', ax.XAxis.TickValues)

[Walter Roberson]

@William Greenway

Please be more specific about what is not working for you -- and also about which MATLAB release you are using.