title
Add title to axes or legend
Syntax
Description
title(
adds the specified title at the top and in the center of the current axes. Reissuing the txt
)title
command causes the new title to replace the old title.
title(
additionally specifies title properties using one or more txt
,Name,Value
)Name,Value
pair arguments.
Examples
Add Title to Current Figure
Create a figure and display a title in the current axes.
figure
plot((1:10).^2)
title('My Title')
You also can call title
with a function that returns a string. For example, the date
function returns a string containing today's date.
title(date)
MATLAB® sets the output of date
as the axes title.
Include Variable's Value in Title
Include the value of variable c
in a title.
figure plot((1:10).^2) f = 70; c = (f-32)/1.8; title(['Temperature is ',num2str(c),' C'])
Create Multicolored Title Using TeX Markup
In a TeX string, use the color modifier \color
to change the color of characters following it from the previous color.
figure plot((1:10).^2) title(['\fontsize{16}black {\color{magenta}magenta '... '\color[rgb]{0 .5 .5}teal \color{red}red} black again'])
Create Colored Title Using Name,Value Pair Argument
Use the Name,Value
pair 'Color','m'
to set the color of the title to magenta.
figure plot((1:10).^2) title('Case number # 3','Color', 'm')
Include Greek Symbols in Title
Use a TeX string to include Greek symbols in a title.
t = (0:0.01:0.2); y = exp(-25*t); figure plot(t,y) title('y = \ite^{\lambda t}','Color','b')
The 'Interpreter'
property must be 'tex'
(the default).
Include Superscript or Subscript Character in Title
figure
plot((1:10).^2)
title('\alpha^2 and X_1')
The superscript character, "^", and the subscript character, "_", modify the character or substring defined in braces immediately following.
Create Multiline Title
Create a multiline title using a multiline cell array.
figure plot((1:10).^2) title({'First line';'Second line'})
Display Text As Typed
Set the Interpreter
property as 'none'
so that the string X_1
is displayed in the figure as typed, without making 1
a subscript of X
.
figure plot((1:10).^2) title('X_1','Interpreter','none')
MATLAB® displays the string X_1
in the title of the figure.
Add Title to Specific Axes
Create two subplots and return the handles to the axes objects, s(1)
and s(2)
.
figure s(1) = subplot(2,1,1); plot((1:10).^2) s(2) = subplot(2,1,2); plot((1:10).^3)
Add a title to each subplot by referring to its axes handle, s(1)
, or s(2)
.
title(s(1),'Top Plot') title(s(2),'Bottom Plot')
Add Title and Return Text Handle
Add a title to a plot and return the text object.
plot((1:10).^2)
t = title('My Title');
Set the color of the title to red. Starting in R2014b, you can use dot notation to set properties. If you are using an earlier release, use the set
function instead.
t.Color = 'red';
Input Arguments
txt
— Text to display as titlecharacter array | cell array | numeric value
Text to display as title, specified as a character array, cell array, or numeric value.
Example: 'my label'
Example: {'first line','second line'}
Example: 123
To include numeric variables with text in a title, use the num2str
function. For example:
x = 42;
str = ['The value is ',num2str(x)];
To include special characters, such as superscripts, subscripts, Greek letters, or mathematical symbols, use TeX markup. For a list of supported markup, see theInterpreter
property.
To create multiline titles:
-
Use a cell array where each cell contains a line of text, such as
{'first line','second line'}
. -
Use a character array where each row contains a line of text, such as
['abc'; 'ab ']
. If you use this technique, each row must have the same number of characters. -
Use
sprintf
to create a character vector with a new line character, such assprintf('first line \n second line')
.
Numeric titles are converted to text using sprintf('%g',value)
. For example, 12345678
displays as 1.23457e+07
.
-
Note: The words
default
,factory
, andremove
are reserved words that will not appear in a title when quoted as a normal character vector. To display any of these words individually, precede them with a backslash, such as'\default'
or'\remove'
.
obj
— Target for titleaxes object | legend object
Target for title, specified as an axes object or a legend object. If you do not specify an object, then title
adds the title to the current axes.
Name-Value Pair Arguments
Specify optional comma-separated pairs of Name,Value
arguments. Name
is the argument name and Value
is the corresponding value. Name
must appear inside single quotes (' '
). You can specify several name and value pair arguments in any order as Name1,Value1,...,NameN,ValueN
.
'Color','red','FontSize',14
adds a title with red, 14-point font.
In addition to the following, you can specify other text object properties using Name,Value
pair arguments. See Text Properties.
'FontSize'
— Font size11
(default) | scalar value greater than 0
Font size, specified as a scalar value greater than 0
in point units. One point equals 1/72 inch. To change the font units, use the FontUnits
property.
If you add a title to an axes object, then the font size properties for the axes also affect the title font size. The title font size updates to equal the axes font size multiplied by the title scale factor. The FontSize
property of the axes contains the axes font size. The TitleFontSizeMultiplier
property of the axes contains the scale factor. By default, the axes font size is 10 points and the scale factor is 1.1, so the title font size is 11 points.
Data Types: single
| double
| int8
| int16
| int32
| int64
| uint8
| uint16
| uint32
| uint64
'FontWeight'
— Thickness of text characters'bold'
(default) | 'normal'
Thickness of the text characters, specified as one of these values:
-
'bold'
— Thicker characters outlines than normal -
'normal'
— Normal weight as defined by the particular font
MATLAB® uses the FontWeight
property to select a font from those available on your system. Not all fonts have a bold font weight. Therefore, specifying a bold font weight could still result in the normal font weight.
If you add a title to an axes object, then the TitleFontWeight
property for the associated axes affects the FontWeight
value for the title.
-
Note: The
'light'
and'demi'
font weight values have been removed. Use'normal'
instead.
'FontName'
— Font name'Helvetica'
(default) | 'FixedWidth'
| system supported font name
Font name, specified as the name of the font to use or 'FixedWidth'
. To display and print properly, the font name must be a font that your system supports.
To use a fixed-width font that looks good in any locale, use 'FixedWidth'
. The 'FixedWidth'
value relies on the root FixedWidthFontName
property. Setting the rootFixedWidthFontName
property causes an immediate update of the display to use the new font.
Example: 'Cambria'
'Color'
— Text color[0 0 0]
(default) | RGB triplet | character vector | 'none'
Text color, specified as a three-element RGB triplet, a character vector of a color name, or 'none'
. The default color is black with an RGB triplet value of [0 0 0]
. If you set the color to 'none'
, then the text is invisible.
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]
. This table lists the long and short color name options and the equivalent RGB triplet values.
Long Name | Short Name | RGB Triplet |
---|---|---|
'yellow' | 'y' | [1 1 0] |
'magenta' | 'm' | [1 0 1] |
'cyan' | 'c' | [0 1 1] |
'red' | 'r' | [1 0 0] |
'green' | 'g' | [0 1 0] |
'blue' | 'b' | [0 0 1] |
'white' | 'w' | [1 1 1] |
'black' | 'k' | [0 0 0] |
Example: 'blue'
Example: [0 0 1]
'Interpreter'
— Interpretation of text characters'tex'
(default) | 'latex'
| 'none'
Interpretation of text characters, specified as one of these values:
-
'tex'
— Interpret characters using a subset of TeX markup. -
'latex'
— Interpret characters using LaTeX markup. -
'none'
— Display literal characters.
TeX Markup
By default, MATLAB supports a subset of TeX markup. Use TeX markup to add superscripts and subscripts, modify the font type and color, and include special characters in the text.
This table lists the supported modifiers with the Interpreter
property set to 'tex'
. Modifiers remain in effect until the end of the text. Superscripts and subscripts are an exception because they only modify the next character or the characters within the curly braces.
Modifier | Description | Example |
---|---|---|
^{ } | Superscript | 'text^{superscript}' |
_{ } | Subscript | 'text_{subscript}' |
\bf | Bold font | '\bf text' |
\it | Italic font | '\it text' |
\sl | Oblique font (usually the same as italic font) | '\sl text' |
\rm | Normal font | '\rm text' |
\fontname{specifier} | Font name — Set specifier as the name of a font family. You can use this in combination with other modifiers. | '\fontname{Courier} text' |
\fontsize{specifier} | Font size — Set specifier as a numeric scalar value in point units to change the font size. | '\fontsize{15} text' |
\color{specifier} | Font color — Set specifer as one of these colors: red ,green , yellow , magenta , blue , black , white , gray ,darkGreen , orange , or lightBlue . | '\color{magenta} text' |
\color[rgb]{specifier} | Custom font color — Set specifier as a three-element RGB triplet. | '\color[rgb]{0,0.5,0.5} text' |
This table lists the supported special characters with the Interpreter
property set to 'tex'
.
Character Sequence | Symbol | Character Sequence | Symbol | Character Sequence | Symbol |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
| α | | υ | | ~ |
| ∠ | | Φ | | ≤ |
| | | χ | | ∞ |
| β | | ψ | | ♣ |
| γ | | ω | | ♦ |
| δ | | Γ | | ♥ |
| ɛ | | Δ | | ♠ |
| ζ | | Θ | | ↔ |
| η | | Λ | | ← |
| Θ | | Ξ | | ⇐ |
| ϑ | | Π | | ↑ |
| ι | | Σ | | → |
| κ | | ϒ | | ⇒ |
| λ | | Φ | | ↓ |
| µ | | Ψ | | º |
| ν | | Ω | | ± |
| ξ | | ∀ | | ≥ |
| π | | ∃ | | ∝ |
| ρ | | ∍ | | ∂ |
| σ | | ≅ | | • |
| ς | | ≈ | | ÷ |
| τ | | ℜ | | ≠ |
| ≡ | | ⊕ | | ℵ |
| ℑ | | ∪ | | ℘ |
| ⊗ | | ⊆ | | ∅ |
| ∩ | | ∈ | | ⊇ |
| ⊃ | | ⌈ | | ⊂ |
| ∫ | \ | · | | ο |
| ⌋ | \ | ¬ | | ∇ |
\ | ⌊ | \ | x | \ | ... |
| ⊥ | \ | √ | \ | ´ |
\ | ∧ | \ | ϖ | \0 | ∅ |
\ | ⌉ | \ | 〉 | \ | | |
\ | ∨ | \ | 〈 | \ | © |
LaTeX Markup
To use LaTeX markup, set the Interpreter
property to 'latex'
. Use dollar symbols around the text, for example, use '$\int_1^{20} x^2 dx$'
for inline mode or'$$\int_1^{20} x^2 dx$$'
for display mode.
The displayed text uses the default LaTeX font style. The FontName
, FontWeight
, and FontAngle
properties do not have an effect. To change the font style, use LaTeX markup.
The maximum size of the text that you can use with the LaTeX interpreter is 1200 characters. For multiline text, this reduces by about 10 characters per line.
For more information about the LaTeX system, see The LaTeX Project website at http://www.latex-project.org/.
Output Arguments
t
— Object used for title texttext object
Object used for the title text, returned as one of these types of objects:
-
Text object — If you add a title to axes, then
title
returns a text object. Use this text object to access and modify properties of the title after it is created. For a list of text object properties, see Text Properties. You also can access the title through theTitle
property of the axes object. -
Legend text object — If you add a title to a legend, then
title
returns a legend text object. Use this legend text object to access and modify properties of the title after it is created. For a list of legend text object properties, see Legend Text Properties. You also can access the title through theTitle
property of the legend object.