"plot" versus "text" command

Why does the following code:

x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]; 
y = [2, 4, 1, 5, 3]; 
labels = {'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E'};

plot(x, y, 'LineStyle', 'none');
hold on; 
text(x, y, labels, 'HorizontalAlignment', 'center', 'VerticalAlignment', 'middle'); 

result in something different than this code?:

x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]; 
y = [2, 4, 1, 5, 3]; 
labels = {'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E'};

text(x, y, labels, 'HorizontalAlignment', 'center', 'VerticalAlignment', 'middle')

Answer 1

[Adam Danz]

Text's property AffectAutoLimits is set to off by default. This means that the axes limits will not update if a text object is plotted outside of the axes limits. To auto-adjust the axes limits for text objects, include the name-value pair "AffectAutoLimits", "on" in the text(__) command.

x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]; 
y = [2, 4, 1, 5, 3]; 
labels = {'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E'};
text(x, y, labels, ...
    'AffectAutoLimits', 'on', ...   % <-------------
    'HorizontalAlignment', 'center', ...
    'VerticalAlignment', 'middle')

When AffectAutoLimits is on, axes limits will be adjust to include the text anchor coordinates, not the full text extent. The text anchor is the coordinate that defines the text location but the text extent could extend outside of the axes limits. Auto-adjusting axes limits to include text extents is currently not possible .

Example:

figure
plot([-2 2],[1 1], 'rx')
text(-2, 1, 'LeftLabel', ...
    'AffectAutoLimits', 'on', ... 
    'HorizontalAlignment', 'Center',...
    'VerticalAlignment', 'bottom', ...
    'Color','b')
text(2, 1, 'RightLabel', ...
    'AffectAutoLimits', 'on', ... 
    'HorizontalAlignment', 'Center',...
    'VerticalAlignment', 'bottom', ...
    'Color','b')
box on