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matlabplotmatlab-figure

Change the color of the bottom xaxis only

I would like to change the bottom x-axis of my graph to blue,‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ whilst keeping the other three sides black.‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Is there an easy way to do this which I'm unaware of?‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Solution

  • A possible workaround is to put an empty axis on top and hide its ticks.

    Example:

    %Some random plot
x = 0:0.1:4*pi;
y = cos(x);
plot(x,y);

%Adjustments
ax1 = gca;                %Current axes
%Now changing x-axis color to blue
set(ax1,'XColor','b');    %or ax1.XColor='b' for  >=R2014b 
ax2=axes('Position',get(ax1,'Position'),... %or ax1.Position for >=R2014b
    'XAxisLocation','top','YAxisLocation','right','Color','none',...
    'XTickLabels',[] ,'YTickLabels',[],...
     'XTick', get(ax1,'XTick'));  %or ax1.XTick for >=R2014b
linkaxes([ax1 ax2]);      %for zooming and panning

    output

    Caveat: This changes the mode of XTickLabels from auto to manual and thus any zooming/panning will not automatically update the tick colors.