uilabel

Create label component

Syntax

lbl = uilabel

lbl = uilabel(parent)

lbl = uilabel(___,Name,Value)

Description

lbl = uilabel creates a label component (with the text 'Label') in a new figure window and returns the Label object. MATLAB^® calls the uifigure function to create the figure.

lbl = uilabel(parent) creates the label in the specified parent container. The parent can be a Figure created using the uifigure function, or one of its child containers.

lbl = uilabel(___,Name,Value) specifies label properties using one or more Name,Value pair arguments. Use this option with any of the input argument combinations in the previous syntaxes.

Examples

Create Label Component with Default Text

fig = uifigure;
lbl = uilabel(fig);

Create Label Component in Panel

Specify a Panel as the parent.

fig = uifigure;
pnl = uipanel(fig);
lbl = uilabel(pnl);

Set and Access Label Component Properties

Create a default label.

fig = uifigure;
lbl = uilabel(fig);

Change the label text and font size.

lbl.Text = "Result";
lbl.FontSize = 14;

The label is clipped because the current label size is too small for the new text at the new font size.

Determine the current label size by getting the third and fourth elements of the Position property value.

size = lbl.Position(3:4)

size =

    31    15

Change the label size to accommodate the new text.

lbl.Position(3:4) = [62 22];

Wrap Long Label Text

Wrap label text to fit within the width of a label.

Create a label. Specify the label text and size.

fig = uifigure;
lbl = uilabel(fig);
lbl.Text = "The data shown represents 18 months of observations.";
lbl.Position = [100 100 100 60];

Wrap the text in the label.

lbl.WordWrap = "on";

Format Label Text

Use HTML markup to selectively format parts of the label text.

Create a label and specify the label size.

fig = uifigure;
lbl = uilabel(fig,"Position",[100 100 150 32]);

Specify the label text using HTML markup and set the label to interpret the text as HTML.

lbl.Text = "<font style='color:green;'>This table</font> is <em>not complete</em>."
lbl.Interpreter = "html";

Display Equation

Use LaTeX to display a formatted equation.

Create a label and specify the label size.

fig = uifigure;
lbl = uilabel(fig,"Position",[100 100 125 50]);

Specify the label text and set the label to interpret the text as LaTeX.

lbl.Text = "$$\frac{d}{dx} \int_a^x f(t)\;dt = f(x)$$"
lbl.Interpreter = "latex";

Input Arguments

parent — Parent container

Figure object (default) | Tab object | Panel object | ButtonGroup object | GridLayout object

Parent container, specified as a Figure object created using the uifigure function or one of its child containers: Tab, Panel, ButtonGroup, or GridLayout. If you do not specify a parent container, MATLAB calls the uifigure function to create a new Figure object that serves as the parent container.

Name-Value Arguments

Specify optional pairs of arguments as Name1=Value1,...,NameN=ValueN, where Name is the argument name and Value is the corresponding value. Name-value arguments must appear after other arguments, but the order of the pairs does not matter.

Before R2021a, use commas to separate each name and value, and enclose Name in quotes.

Example: uilabel("Text","Sum:") specifies the label displays the text Sum:.

Note

The properties listed here are a subset of the available properties. For the full list, see Label.

Text — Label text

'Label' (default) | character vector | cell array of character vectors | string scalar | string array | ...

Label text, specified as a character vector, cell array of character vectors, string scalar, string array, or 1-D categorical array. Use a cell array of character vectors or a string array to specify multiple lines of text.

Alternatively, use the sprintf function to create formatted text containing line breaks and other special characters.

text = sprintf('%s\n%s','Line 1','Line 2');
label = uilabel('Text',text,'Position',[100 100 100 32]);

If you specify text as a character vector without using sprintf, MATLAB will not interpret control sequences such as \n.

If you specify this property as a categorical array, MATLAB uses the values in the array, not the full set of categories.

Example: 'Threshold'

Example: {'Threshold' 'Value'}

WordWrap — Word wrapping to fit component width

'off' (default) | on/off logical value

Word wrapping to fit component width, specified as 'off' or 'on', or as numeric or logical 0 (false) or 1 (true). A value of 'off' is equivalent to false, and 'on' is equivalent to true. Thus, you can use the value of this property as a logical value. The value is stored as an on/off logical value of type matlab.lang.OnOffSwitchState.

Use this property to prevent text from getting clipped horizontally when the width of the component is smaller than the text you want to display.

• 'off' — Text does not wrap.

• 'on' — Breaks text into new lines so that each line fits within the width of the component and avoids breaking words when possible.

Setting the WordWrap property to 'on' does not prevent text from getting clipped vertically when the height of the component is too small to display all the lines of text.

Position — Label location and size

[100 100 31 22] (default) | [left bottom width height]

Label location and size, relative to the parent, specified as the vector [left bottom width height]. This table describes each element in the vector.

Element	Description
left	Distance from the inner left edge of the parent container to the outer left edge of the label
bottom	Distance from the inner bottom edge of the parent container to the outer bottom edge of the label
width	Distance between the right and left outer edges of the label
height	Distance between the top and bottom outer edges of the label

The Position values are relative to the drawable area of the parent container. The drawable area is the area inside the borders of the container and does not include the area occupied by decorations such as a menu bar or title.

All measurements are in pixel units.

Example: [100 100 100 20]

Version History

Introduced in R2016a

R2021a: Style text and display equations

Use the Interpreter property to enable HTML or LaTeX markup for the label text.

For more information, see Label.

R2020b: Wrap label text

Use the WordWrap property to prevent text from getting clipped horizontally when the width of the UI component is smaller than the text you want to display. Setting the WordWrap property to 'on' breaks the text into new lines so that each line fits within the component. It avoids breaking words when possible. When the property is set to 'off', the text does not wrap.