How can I make the labels of components in appdesigner use the latex interpreter?

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Hi,
Is there a way to make the label of a numeric box in a GUI generated by appdesigner to use latex as an interpreter? Currently, if I want to say label the numeric text box it displays e.g. y_2(0). How can I make it display $y_2(0)$ i.e. in latex mode, please?
Thank you!

Accepted Answer

Sam McDonald
Sam McDonald on 8 Mar 2017
This is a limitation of App Designer. There is currently no way of setting a latex interpreter for text boxes.
As somewhat of a workaround, you could simply generate the formatted text elsewhere and copy and paste it into the label field. Try it with this: y₂(0)
You can also use the "char" command to create special characters. This will create the same string:
['y' char(8322) '(0)']
  2 Comments
Gary Gorman
Gary Gorman on 29 Dec 2022
Sam, could I ask for a little more clarification on your answer to Natalie?
I don't understand "generate the formatted text elsewhere and copy and paste it into the label field."
I dont understand because Matlab uses several different rendering engines for character strings. One rendering engine is the LATEX interpreter. One rendering engine is used to display output in the console. One rendering engine is used to display output in the livescript command window. One rendering engine is used to display output in the livescript output window.
I also don't understand what "formatted text" means. Matlab has its own native and proprietary "text formatting" like x_0 for "x-subscript-0". Is already-rendered LATEX output also "formatted text"?
I guess I am tring to figure out exactly what my quesion is. Perhaps my question is: "Can already-rendered LATEX be output to any field in AppDesigner?"
Sorry I can't write a better question. I am totally confused between "formatting" and "rendering", I guess.

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More Answers (2)

Christopher Braunholz
Christopher Braunholz on 9 Aug 2018
This is not satisfying, Matlab.

Rick Butler
Rick Butler on 21 Jul 2019
Edited: Rick Butler on 21 Jul 2019
As a workaround I sometimes use a figure instead with the following properties:
  • No labels, title, ticks or ticklabels
  • YLim = [0,1], XLim depends on the width of your 'label'
  • XColor, YColor and the color of the box set to 'none'
  • DataAspectRatio = [1,1,1]
Now you can use
text(figure_handle, 0.2, 0.5, '$L\alpha TeX t\epsilon xt$', 'Interpreter', 'latex', more options..)
Copy-pasting from another source is probably less tedious but this solution allows you to change your label text dynamically.
Fingers crossed for label interpreters in 2019b!
  3 Comments
Saeid
Saeid on 26 Jul 2021
Nice example, Ron. It covers almost all the cases that someone needs to put a formula into a GUI!
Thanks!
Gary Gorman
Gary Gorman on 29 Dec 2022
I am trying to get Rick's and ron's methods to work but no luck. As for Rick's method:
figure_handle = gcf; text(figure_handle, 0.2, 0.5, '$L\alpha TeX t\epsilon xt$', 'Interpreter', 'latex', more options..)
throws and error "Error using text Text cannot be a child of Figure."
Ron's answer throws a bunch of errors, probably because either 1) I do not understand how to fill in the missing but presumed user-understood syntax items, or 2) Ron's example code is not executable in a standard livescript; Ron's code only executes in AppDesigner.
Does there exist anywhere a code example for a .mlx file which contains all the necessary commands and sytax to run?

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