Home Tools FIG File ViewerMATLAB FIG to CSV

MATLAB FIG to CSV

Pull the numbers behind a MATLAB .fig plot into a CSV in this browser: the x, y and z values of every line, scatter, bar, surface and patch, ready for Excel, Google Sheets or Python.

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What this tool does

Get the data out of a MATLAB .fig figure as CSV in your browser, without MATLAB. Every line, scatter, bar and surface, with series names. No upload.

How to use it

Choose the .fig file, or drop it on the box. It stays on your device.
Look at the plot to check it is the right figure. The list below it names every series and its number of points.
Press Plot data (CSV). Each series gets its own columns, headed with the plot title, the series name and x, y or z.
Open the CSV in Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice, Python or R. Download PNG or SVG if you need the picture too.

Common uses

The usual way to get numbers out of a figure is to open it in MATLAB and run findobj or get on the XData and YData of each line. That needs a licence, a bit of code and a working install. People who need the data often have none of these: a student redoing a plot from a supervisor's old result, a reviewer checking a curve in a paper, an engineer moving test results into Excel, a researcher whose original script is lost and only the .fig survives. Digitising the curve from a screenshot is slow and loses precision.

A .fig file keeps the exact values, because MATLAB saves the full data of each graphics object. This page reads them straight from the file, so the CSV holds the same double precision numbers MATLAB plotted, not a traced copy. Lines, scatter plots, stairs, areas and error bars give x and y columns (plus z for 3D lines and lower and upper for error bars). Bars give the bar positions and heights. Surfaces and images give one row per grid point with x, y and value, which pivots easily in a spreadsheet. Patches give their vertices.

Column headings say where each column came from, for example Profit on Test Data / stock1 (line) / y, so a figure with several subplots and many lines stays readable. Series of different lengths sit side by side, with empty cells below the shorter ones. The file starts with a byte order mark, so Excel shows names with symbols correctly, and numbers use a plain dot as the decimal point.

Big figures are fine. The CSV is built in a background worker after the plot is shown, so you can look at the figure while it is made, and figures with millions of points produce a full CSV with nothing thinned out.

Private, and the limits

The CSV is made on your computer. The figure is read in this tab and the file is handed to your browser as a download, with nothing sent to TaskNinja, no account and no record of the file name or contents.

The CSV holds the data saved in the figure, not the script that made it. Values computed on the fly by MATLAB (such as fitted curves added with an app, or data linked to a workspace variable) are only there if they were saved as part of the plot. Figures saved with -v7.3 are not read yet.

Official sources

Last checked 2026-10-28.

FAQ

How do I extract data from a .fig file without MATLAB?

Choose the .fig file here and press Plot data (CSV). The CSV has the x and y values of every series in the figure, with their names as headings.

Are the values exact or traced from the picture?

Exact. They are read from the data MATLAB saved in the file, at full precision, not measured from an image.

What happens with several subplots?

Every series from every subplot goes into the same CSV, and each column heading starts with the subplot title so you can tell them apart.

Is the figure uploaded to make the CSV?

No. The CSV is made by this browser tab, so the figure and the data stay on your device.

Can I get the data from a 3D surface?

Yes. A surface becomes one row per grid point with x, y and z columns, which you can pivot back into a grid in a spreadsheet.

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