saveTightFigure.m

% Crops whitespace from a figure and saves the resulting figure to disk
% http://tipstrickshowtos.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-to-get-rid-of-white-margin-in.html
% Cannot be called twice on the same figure without closing and replotting
% the figure
function saveTightFigure(filename)
% Make your figure boundaries tight
allaxes = findall(gcf,'type','axes');
ti = get(gca,'TightInset');
set(gca,'Position',[ti(1) ti(2) 1-ti(3)-ti(1) 1-ti(4)-ti(2)]);

% Now you have a tight figure on the screen but if you directly do saveas 
% (or print), MATLAB will still add the annoying white space. 
% To get rid of them, we need to adjust the ``paper size"
set(gca,'units','centimeters')
pos = get(gca,'Position');
ti = get(gca,'TightInset');
set(gcf, 'PaperUnits','centimeters');
set(gcf, 'PaperSize', [pos(3)+ti(1)+ti(3) pos(4)+ti(2)+ti(4)]);
set(gcf, 'PaperPositionMode', 'manual');
set(gcf, 'PaperPosition',[0 0 pos(3)+ti(1)+ti(3) pos(4)+ti(2)+ti(4)]);

% Save it
saveas(gcf,filename)