# control margin in plot [duplicate]

How would I control the distance between the y-axis and the left most plot border, ie. the space where description of the axis would be. I have two plots, I export them as two files, and then I place them one below the other and the y-axis is offset on one as in the picture below:

Ideally I would like to determine the space from the upper plot and then set it to the second plot so that the axis are visually below each other when I put the exported plots below each other.

## marked as duplicate by MarcoB, user9660, Dr. belisarius plotting StackExchange.ready(function() { if (StackExchange.options.isMobile) return; $('.dupe-hammer-message-hover:not(.hover-bound)').each(function() { var$hover = $(this).addClass('hover-bound'),$msg = $hover.siblings('.dupe-hammer-message');$hover.hover( function() { $hover.showInfoMessage('', { messageElement:$msg.clone().show(), transient: false, position: { my: 'bottom left', at: 'top center', offsetTop: -7 }, dismissable: false, relativeToBody: true }); }, function() { StackExchange.helpers.removeMessages(); } ); }); }); Mar 18 '16 at 18:57

• Manual manipulation of ImagePadding is pretty much the most direct way to go here. Rather annoyingly, it is typically very difficult to do what you want, and more in general to generate highly customized publication-quality plots with predictable width, axis position etc. Fortunately, though, the free SciDraw has been developed specifically for this purpose: scidraw.nd.edu. You may want to give that a go. – MarcoB Mar 18 '16 at 14:56
Plot[x^2, {x, 0, 10},

• Thanks. And how do I determine the ImagePadding value for an existing plot? AbsoluteOptions just gives Full... – leosenko Mar 17 '16 at 23:58
• @leosenko As you noticed, AbsoluteOptions has long been broken and it does NOT work as it should, or even according to its own documentation. There are attempts to work around this, e.g. Retrieving the ImagePadding in absolute units, and this answer by Szabolcs that further automates that code. – MarcoB Mar 18 '16 at 15:02