Baseline Properties

Baseline appearance and behavior

Baseline objects are created as part of bar charts, area charts, and stem charts. Baseline properties control the appearance and behavior of a Baseline object. By changing property values, you can modify certain aspects of the baseline. Use dot notation to refer to a particular object and property:

b = bar(1:10);
bl = b.BaseLine;
c = bl.Color;
bl.Color = 'red';

Appearance

Color — Line color

'none' | RGB triplet | hexadecimal color codes | 'r' | 'g''b' | ...

Line color, specified as 'none', an RGB triplet, hexadecimal color code, a color name, or a short name. If you specify the color as 'none', then the baseline is invisible.

RGB triplets and hexadecimal color codes are useful for specifying custom colors.

• An RGB triplet is a three-element row vector whose elements specify the intensities of the red, green, and blue components of the color. The intensities must be in the range [0,1]; for example, [0.4 0.6 0.7].

• A hexadecimal color code is a character vector or a string scalar that starts with a hash symbol (#) followed by three or six hexadecimal digits, which can range from 0 to F. The values are not case sensitive. Thus, the color codes "#FF8800", "#ff8800", "#F80", and "#f80" are equivalent.

Alternatively, you can specify some common colors by name. This table lists the named color options, the equivalent RGB triplets, and hexadecimal color codes.

Color Name	Short Name	RGB Triplet	Hexadecimal Color Code	Appearance
"red"	"r"	[1 0 0]	"#FF0000"
"green"	"g"	[0 1 0]	"#00FF00"
"blue"	"b"	[0 0 1]	"#0000FF"
"cyan"	"c"	[0 1 1]	"#00FFFF"
"magenta"	"m"	[1 0 1]	"#FF00FF"
"yellow"	"y"	[1 1 0]	"#FFFF00"
"black"	"k"	[0 0 0]	"#000000"
"white"	"w"	[1 1 1]	"#FFFFFF"

This table lists the default color palettes for plots in the light and dark themes.

Palette	Palette Colors
"gem" — Light theme default Before R2025a: Most plots use these colors by default.
"glow" — Dark theme default

You can get the RGB triplets and hexadecimal color codes for these palettes using the orderedcolors and rgb2hex functions. For example, get the RGB triplets for the "gem" palette and convert them to hexadecimal color codes.

RGB = orderedcolors("gem");
H = rgb2hex(RGB);

Before R2023b: Get the RGB triplets using RGB = get(groot,"FactoryAxesColorOrder").

Before R2024a: Get the hexadecimal color codes using H = compose("#%02X%02X%02X",round(RGB*255)).

Example: 'blue'

Example: [0 0 1]

Example: '#0000FF'

LineStyle — Line style

'-' | '--' | ':' | '-.' | 'none'

Line style, specified as one of the line styles listed in this table.

Line Style	Description	Resulting Line
'-'	Solid line
'--'	Dashed line
':'	Dotted line
'-.'	Dash-dotted line
'none'	No line	No line

LineWidth — Line width

positive value

Line width, specified as a positive value in point units.

Example: 0.75

Location and Visibility

BaseValue — Value of baseline

scalar

Value of the baseline, specified as a scalar.

Typically, baselines are associated with bar series, stem series, or area objects. The BaseValue property for the associated object and the BaseValue property for the baseline object always have the same value. Setting one property also sets the other property. The BaseLine property for the associated object contains the baseline object.

Example: 0.75

Visible — Visibility

'on' | on/off logical value

Visibility, specified as 'on' or 'off', or as numeric or logical 1 (true) or 0 (false). A value of 'on' is equivalent to true, and 'off' is equivalent to false. Thus, you can use the value of this property as a logical value. The value is stored as an on/off logical value of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState.

• 'on' — Display the baseline.

• 'off' — Hide the baseline without deleting it. You can access the properties of an invisible baseline.

Typically, baselines are associated with bar series, stem series, or area objects. The ShowBaseline property for the associated object and the Visible property for the baseline object always have the same value. Setting one property also sets the other property. The BaseLine property for the associated object contains the baseline object.

Parent/Child

Parent — Parent

Axes object

Parent, returned as an Axes object. However, Baseline objects are not listed as children of the axes.

Children — Children

empty GraphicsPlaceholder array

The baseline has no children. You cannot set this property.

Version History

Introduced in R2014b