Making Figure Measurements True to Size

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Hello all,

I'm preparing some figures for publication. I have made all of the plot areas 1.875 inches by 1.875 inches in the "Modify Graph" dialog box using "Absolute" modes for both height and width. I then exported them as .eps files and opened them again in Adobe Illustrator such that I could assemble them into multi-panel figures.

However, they are not all the same size using this method. They are generally rectangles with the sides of their plots somewhere in the range of 1.9 to 2.0 inches. I tried switching the ticks from being external to internal on the recommendation of a colleague, but this did not change anything. Is there a tolerance value hidden somewhere that I can set? Some other option in SavePICT that I've missed?

Also, just to be clear, I'm more concerned about the plot areas being the same than the overall size of the figure, hence why I haven't messed around with the /W flag in SavePICT.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you in advance!

I would advise just using Igor's layouts to make multi-panel figures, unless you really need something specific that illustrator is giving you that Igor can't provide. If you add both of your graphs to a layout (Windows->New Layout), you can select both of your graphs and use Layout->Make Same Width and Height, Layout->Make Plot Areas Uniform, and the Layout->Align menu actions to get nice alignment and sizing for your figure. Once everything is all set, File->Save Graphics for the final figure.

The good thing about making the figure in Igor is that if you ever add more data to the existing graph, the layout is automatically updated so you don't have to reformat the entire figure in illustrator again.

Another useful thing to do is to keep around a function or macro that will automatically insert a rectangle into the layout that is sized to single, 1.5, or double column figure widths in centimeters (using DrawRect). That way you can align all your graphs inside of it, and know for sure that when you export multiple figures, their relative sizing will be correct.

April 7, 2025 at 04:57 pm - Permalink

Make the margins fixed size, too. Total graph size = plot area sizes + margin sizes.

And by default Igor auto-sizes the margins (which generally looks better, but it does affect sizing in a way you don't want in this case).

April 7, 2025 at 05:23 pm - Permalink

As Jim said, using the Modify Graph dialog you are defining the plot area (i.e., where your data lives) not the graph size. Only by calculating the correct margin size (width = plot width + left margin + right margin etc.) can you get the desired graph size. I shamelessly advertise my Graph Tools package here, which can do all this quite conveniently: https://www.wavemetrics.com/node/21562

Also, I agree with Ben that there is likely no need to do the round tour over Illustrator. I used to do this as well, and this quite a pain to redo part of the work after any detail of the data has changed. Just do everything within Igor and you will likely have less work.

April 7, 2025 at 08:22 pm - Permalink