Origin Plot Settings for HQ Graphs

If you've hit this blog before you may realize I think Origin is a TERRIBLE piece of software to use. I have resolved to become proficient with it since there is a license available to me and my boss uses it exclusively. All I have to say is thank god I'm using LaTeX for most of my pubs because as far as I can tell Origin still gives you the middle finger if you want predictable results in MS Word. Anyway...here are the settings and steps that seem to work best for me

Open Origin and click on Tools>Options








Once you have a graph started under Format>Page


*UPDATE* one more thing...it seems that if you make graphs on different computers one more setting should be changed to ensure they are standardized. I think the disparity might be with the printer settings on different computers. The layer location on the graph needs to be manually set. Use

This seems to center the figure vertically well.
This is for a B&W publication that will fit 2 graphs horizontally for standard margins. Leave the rest alone

Then since I use LaTeX, you must export them into .eps so
File>Export
be sure Margin Control is on Page. That's important for all the axis to line up.

*UPDATE* Because Origin's terrible programming, it is important to export ONE GRAPH AT A TIME! Doing multiple exports at once can shift the position of labels and axis of the output file so that subfigures won't align properly. That was an hour of my life I'll never get back...thanks Origin. Good one :(

*UPDATE x2* Ok, amending some of the settings above to maximize the figure area. Set the page to 3.13 x 2 and then the layer dimensions look like

then make the axis major ticks to be 3pts. This will make the axis labels fill the entire page when the scales are as small as -9999 (4 characters from the edge of the axis to the edge of the page) for both x and y.

Then in LaTeX the command will look something like

% PRESSURE FIGURES
%===============================================================================================
\begin{figure}
% Requires \usepackage{graphicx}
\centering % centers everything on the page
\subfigure[]
{
\includegraphics[width=3.13in, height=1.75in]{Final_Figures/Pressure_dpdr}% include figure
\label{Fig. SubSec: Pressure_dpdr}
}
\subfigure[]
{
\includegraphics[width=3.13in, height=1.75in]{Final_Figures/Pressure_P}% include figure
\label{Fig. SubSec: Pressure_P}
}
\caption{Variation with vortex Reynolds number of \ref{Fig. SubSec: Pressure_dpdr} the radial derivative of pressure and \ref{Fig. SubSec: Pressure_P}. $\kappa=0.103$ for all plots.} % text to be included under all figures
\label{Fig. SubSec: Pressure}
\end{figure}
%===============================================================================================