在撰写科技论文时，不可避免的要使用图片显示试验结果。excel固然可以用来画图，但是excel画出来的图片不够精美，漂亮。Matlab是一个很强大的工具（我对其他功能知之甚少），可以画出很精美的图片，并且可以直接存储为.eps格式，方便在LaTex中调用。

    我在使用Matlab是遇到了一个问题，就是由于xticklabel的字符串过长，导致多个ticklabel重叠。

    首先，为初学者解释一下什么是ticklabel？什么是label？

http://hiphotos.baidu.com/xuelicheng/abpic/item/7721b3f0c0b524e07831aa72.jpg

    一般情况下，label是可以通过属性设置其旋转的，但是，这并不是我们要旋转的东西，我们想旋转的是ticklabel，而ticklabel在axis属性对话框中通过设置style只能设置FontSize和FontWeight等属性，并不能旋转。

    我通过一个函数实现ticklabel的旋转

function th=rotateticklabel(h,rot,demo)
%ROTATETICKLABEL rotates tick labels
%   TH=ROTATETICKLABEL(H,ROT) ris the calling form where H is a handle to
%   the axis that contains the XTickLabels that are to be rotated. ROT is
%   an optional parameter that specifies the angle of rotation. The default
%   angle is 90. TH is a handle to the text objects created. For long
%   strings such as those produced by datetick, you may have to adjust the
%   position of the axes so the labels don't get cut off.
%
%   Of course, GCA can be substituted for H if desired.
%
%   TH=ROTATETICKLABEL([],[],'demo') shows a demo figure.
%
%   Known deficiencies: if tick labels are raised to a power, the power
%   will be lost after rotation.
%
%   See also datetick.

%   Written Oct 14, 2005 by Andy Bliss
%   Copyright 2005 by Andy Bliss

%DEMO:

if nargin==3
    x=[now-.7 now-.3 now];
    y=[20 35 15];
    figure
    plot(x,y,'.-')
    datetick('x',0,'keepticks')
    h=gca;
    set(h,'position',[0.13 0.35 0.775 0.55])
    rot=90;
end

%set the default rotation if user doesn't specify
if nargin==1
    rot=90;
end
%make sure the rotation is in the range 0:360 (brute force method)
% while rot>360
%     rot=rot-360;
% end
% while rot<0
%     rot=rot+360;
% end
%get current tick labels
a=get(h,'XTickLabel');
%erase current tick labels from figure
set(h,'XTickLabel',[]);
%get tick label positions
b=get(h,'XTick');
c=get(h,'YTick');
%make new tick labels
if rot<180
    th=text(b,repmat(c(1)-.1*(c(2)-c(1)),length(b),1),a,'HorizontalAlignment','right','fontsize',14,'fontweight','bold','rotation',rot);
else
    th=text(b,repmat(c(1)-.1*(c(2)-c(1)),length(b),1),a,'HorizontalAlignment','left','fontsize',14,'fontweight','bold','rotation',rot);
end

如何使用这个函数呢？

x = round(rand(5,3)*10);
h=bar(x,1,'group');
set(gca,'xticklabels',{'benchmark1','benchmark2','benchmark3','benchmark4','benchmark5'});
h = gca;
th=rotateticklabel(h, 45);

效果