 <p>I am aware of two approaches:</p> <ul> <li><p><code>subplot('position',[left bottom width height])</code> function allows to position a subplot anywhere in normalized coordinate frame. </p></li> <li><p>convert the figure to <code>*.eps</code> format and remove the space manually in some <a href="http://www.osalt.com/corel-draw" rel="nofollow">graphic software</a>. This is best if you just need to prepare one figure for publication purposes.</p></li> </ul>