MATLAB: TeX problem — why

tex

This is working

gtext('\Sigma')
gtext('\color {red} 5')

This is not working

gtext('\frac{1}{2}')
gtext('\sqrt(5)')

Why??

MATLAB's TeX does not support those. However, these two will work:

gtext('$\frac{1}{2}$','interpreter','latex','fontsize',50)
gtext('$\sqrt{5}$','interpreter','latex','fontsize',50)

To find out more about tex/latex support in MATLAB, look here:

We have verified that there is a bug in MATLAB 7.0 (R14) in the way that it handles the \newline LaTeX tag.

To work around this issue, embed the LaTeX expression in a \vbox block as in the following example:

text(.5,.5,'\vbox{\noindent a \newline b}','interpreter','Latex');

This bug has been fixed in Release 14 Service Pack 3 (R14SP3). For previous product releases, read below for any possible workarounds:

There is a bug in MATLAB 7.0 (R14) when using the LaTeX interpreter on MacOS.

To work around this issue in MATLAB 7.0 (R14) use the MacOS "Font Book" to load the LaTeX Type 1 fonts located in:

 $MATLAB/sys/fonts/type1/cm/

where $MATLAB is the MATLAB root directory on your machine.

For MATLAB 7.0.1 (R14SP1) and later versions, you can load the LaTeX Type 1 fonts from the link above, or load the LaTeX ttf fonts located in:

 $MATLAB/sys/fonts/ttf/cm/*

After loading the fonts, restart your Mac machine to see the new fonts.

The "Font Book" can be found through the MacOS finder. Consult the MacOS documentation for more information on loading fonts.