How do I ungroup figures exported as vector files such as EPS in Illustrator?

Once I export a MATLAB figure as EPS using R2022b, I am unable to ungroup the figure objects to re-color, change line width and so on for individual figure objects in Adobe Illustrator. I used to be able to do this up until atleast R2021.

How do I restore the ability to select "Ungroup All" in Illustrator so that I can work on the figure objects?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

In general, vector format files (like EPS & PDF) can either contain the "true vector" drawing instructions to recreate the content (draw this string here at this size, draw a red line, fill in the background as blue, etc.) or it contains an embedded image (like a bitmap or PNG). Only files that contain the "true vector" drawing instructions can be ungrouped into individual items that can be edited in other software such as Illustrator. MATLAB has a heuristic that it uses to decide whether to export vector format files as "true vector" or not, depending on the figure contents. This might have been updated in a recent release of MATLAB causing the change in behavior. 

 

Here are a few ways you can force "true vector" output depending on how you would like to generate the EPS files. You can type the following commands into your MATLAB Command Window.

1. Using the "print" command": 

   print(fig, '-depsc',  'output.eps', '-vector');

2. Using the "exportgraphics" command: 

   exportgraphics(fig, 'output.eps', 'ContentType', 'vector');

3. If you want to use the File -> Save As dialog in the figure window to save EPS file, you will first need to set the figure renderer directly to 'painters' before opening the Save As dialog. 

   set(fig, 'Renderer', 'painters')