1. Create, crop and insert high quality PDF images into word.
Matlab can create PDF or EPS figure quite easily by the print command, and you can even use LaTeX to combine multiple figures into one when you have to (subplot in Matlab create a very large margin between figures). However, one problem is to crop off the margins around the PDF. "pdfcrop" is a command line program in Ubuntu, but apparently it can not remove the margin on the bottom of the PDF. I found a nice Java program:
http://www.pdfscissors.com/
This can do the job quite nicely.
Then, before inserting PDF into word, keep in mind that there is no way to include such vector image into M$ Word documents. We have to convert it into high-quality TIFF image. There are quite a few options for this, just make sure to create TIFF image with 600 dpi. Just to be safe.
2. Change font size of Matlab figure in Ubuntu and save it into EPS.
This is a weird problem I had for a long time. Every time I tried to set the font size of Matlab figure in Ubuntu, it does not work. The same code works fine in Windows 7. The problem was that a font package is missing for Ubuntu. Just type:
sudo apt-get install xfonts-75dpi
Log out and log in, then it all works fine. Also, before save the figure as EPS, make sure to include:
