How do you use the LaTeX blackboard font in MATLAB? - matlab

So, based on my question and solutions here, I would like to actually start using LaTeX, in figures as seen. However, one problem I am running into, is that I cannot seem to display the Expectation operator.
From my research, I know that the expectation operator can be displayed as such normally as such:
/mathbb{E}
However, when I try to use it in MATLAB, nothing prints out.
clear all
figure(1); clf(1);
set(gcf, 'color', 'white'), axis off %# Remove axes and set white background
my_text = '$$ \mathbb{E} $$';
text('units', 'inch', 'position', [-0.5 3.5], 'fontsize', 14, 'color', 'k', ...
'interpreter', 'latex', 'string', my_text);
Now, I know that the \mathbb is some sort of different 'library', but frankly it is quite useful for mathematical formulations. How do I 'include' it in MATLAB? I am lost on this.

You might not have noticed it, but you get an warning message in the command prompt:
Warning: Unable to interpret TeX string
which tells you that MATLAB has trouble parsing your LaTeX expression. More specifically, the blackboard bold math font (indicated by the '\mathbb') is not supported by MATLAB's built-in LaTeX interpreter (it requires the amsmath package).
One way to install this package is described here and here. I'll summarize it for you:
Download the AMS-LaTeX package from here.
Modify the m-file tex.m, which is located in the MATLAB root\toolbox\matlab\graphics folder (backup the file before modifying it):
2.1. In the localDecorateInputString function, modify standardhead to include the new packages (marked in bold):
standardhead = [' \nofiles \documentclass{mwarticle} \usepackage{amsfonts, amsbsy, amssymb} \begin{document}']
2.2. In the `localGetTeXPath` function, add the paths of where the AMS package files are located (marked in bold), for instance:
texpath{1} = blah blah blah...
texpath{end+1} = blah blah blah...
texpath{end+1} = 'C:\amslatex';
Copy all .sty files of the AMS package to the MATLAB root\sys\tex folder.
Restart MATLAB.
You should now have the necessary LaTeX font packages installed. I would've gladly checked it out myself if time allowed, it seems promising.

Another way of going about this is to export the figure to an eps file and using the psfrag to retroactively replace all of your standard E's with their Blackboard Bold equivalents.
\psfrag{E}{\mathbb{E}}

Related

Saving figure to pdf prints # instead of tabs in titles

if I create a plot with some tabs in the titles and try saving that to a local pdf file (via print function), I get some hashtags instead of tabs in the pdf. This does not occur in the visible figure.
For example, I plotted the residuals of an approximant to the runge function on a grid:
plot(g, f(g) - runge(g));
title(sprintf('residuals,\t max_x(s-f) = %.3f', max(f(g)-runge(g))));
Then after some axes manipulation (grid, boxes, etc..) I execute
h = gcf;
set(h,'Units','Inches');
pos = get(h,'Position');
set(h,'PaperPositionMode','Auto','PaperUnits','Inches','PaperSize',[pos(3), pos(4)])
print(h,'data/runge_example.pdf','-dpdf','-r200')
close(h)
Is somebody aware of that behaviour or better able to found that as already solved than I am?
EDIT: Same behaviour with saveas and saving to eps. This does not happen with \n
EDIT2: I'm using Matlab Version R2017b (9.3.0.7...)
So, after a long discussion we figured out that we have no idea of how to use tabs in matlab titles in combination with latex mode.
To clarify: use math environments and escape tex directives, otherwise it will throw an error.
so
sprintf('residuals,\t $max_x(\\vert s-f\\vert) = %.3f$', max(f(g)-runge(g))));
will give you a nice string:
residuals, $max_x(\vert s-f\vert) = 0.264$
The problem is, that it really is a tab. And the matlab latex interpreter (don't know which one that uses, the system or an own) crashes on that. I copy-pasted that to a tex document and pdflatex ran fine on it (but not showing that much space unfortunately).
So, I came up with the following fix:
use the latex directive \quad or \qquad:
title(sprintf('residuals,\\quad $max_x(\\vert s-f\\vert) = %.3f$', max(abs(f(g)-runge(g)))));
This will give you more space than a normal space.
EDIT: For this to work you need the interpreter of matlab to be set to "latex" instead of the default "tex". Do this by changing the title to
title(title_string, 'Interpreter', 'latex')
or by setting (globally for that script)
set(groot, 'defaultTextInterpreter', 'latex')

MatLab Eps Print Webdings interpreter

So recently I decided to not use the standard markers that Matlab provides and use my own via: a set of fonts including Webdings or WingDings. I make a standard scatter plot, and plot the text (in wingdings), using the text command, over the locations of the markers.
When I save these plots as png files, they print perfectly. They also appear perfectly on my screen after plotting.
However when I save these plots as eps files, the webdings are turning into their original letters 'l' or 'w'. It also looks like it's plotting them in a Courier font, but my default is Helvetica.
I've read through this previous post, but my question differs in that he is looking to use Latex as the interpreter and to include fonts, whereas I don't want to use Latex as the interpreter. However, it seems like my default interpreter (not sure what that is), isn't doing the job when converting to EPS.
Example:
imageR='w'
text(xf2,yf2,imageR,'fontName',font,'FontSize',fontR,'HorizontalAl','left','color','w')
I figured it out....took me way too long.
Ghostscript / Postscript only export with a few fonts when you are exporting eps files.
This link was incredibly helpful.
I just switched from wingdings/webdings to ZapfDinbats...Practically the same thing...

Exporting figures as vector graphics in .pdf-format using HG2-Update and 'painters' renderer is not working properly

I'm using the still undocumented HG2-Update to create my MATLAB plots, because they just look that much nicer.
(Source: Yair Altman)
Actually, using the current version Release 2013b it works quite nicely and there are not much issues. Except one wants to export the figures as vector graphics (renderer: '-painters'), especially as pdf.
I use the commands:
saveas(gcf,'test.pdf','pdf')
or
print(gcf,'test.pdf','-dpdf')
There are rendering issues, the print does not contain the whole figure and some parts are cropped or non-default fonts are not recognized.
But I'd really like to stay with HG2 and I'd still like to use vector graphics. Is there any solution or workaround?
Exporting vector graphics using the yet not official HG2-Update is quite an issue. The .pdf-export is still totally screwed up.
What is working fine is the .svg-export, apart from that the boundary box is not set properly.
The long workaround would be:
Save the plot with '-dsvg' (print-command) or 'svg' (saveas-command) as vector graphic, open the file in the open source application Inkscape and save again as .pdf with the Export area is drawing checkmark set.
Quite complicated, so I found a way to do it via command-line directly from Matlab (Inkscape still required!):
filename = 'test';
inkscapepath = '"C:\Program Files (x86)\Inkscape\inkscape.exe"';
%// save as .svg
saveas(gcf,filename,'svg')
%// open and save with "export-area-drawing" set via command line
system( [inkscapepath ' ' filename ...
'.svg --export-area-drawing --export-pdf=' filename '.pdf'])
It takes some time, but works without any known issues for now.
Additionally delete the svg-File afterwards:
delete([filename '.svg'])
I had the same problem and used the workaround from thewaywewalk. Now I discovered the MATLAB function "hgexport" works under HG2 (in R2014a).
An issue still was the paper size. I want to use the same size for all graphs with as little white frame as possible. Here you have to set two sizes:
The papersize is set with set(gcf,'PaperSize',[width height]) and the size of your chart is set through export styles. These are set in "Export Setup" or command line:
exp_style=hgexport('readstyle','default');
exp_style.Width = 'width';
exp_style.Height = 'height';
exp_style.Renderer = 'painters';
Now you can export your pdf:
hgexport(gcf,'pdfname',exp_style,'Format','pdf');
PS: In HG2 you may also use Latex for tick labels:
set(gca,'TickLabelInterpreter','latex');

How to set the font settings in .pdf, publish via MATLAB and LATEX

While trying to publish a .pdf file for .m MATLAB code, equations (written in latex) are not properly rendered in appropriate (smooth) font, instead fonts looks scattered.
I did try to fix the problem by decreasing the font-size of the editor but that didn't work.
For example: the MATLAB code is:
%% (a) From above plot there are no signs of convergence of $\rho$
%%
% $x^2+e^{\pi i}$
then the .pdf file is not well written, in which equation's fonts are not smooth enough.
thanks for any suggestions.
I was having the same problem, with equation rendering quality being inadequate.
This is my procedure for fixing this in MATLAB R2013b.
1) In the MATLAB command prompt, enter:
edit publish
This should pop up the editor for you to edit 'publish.m'. Beware, the file may be read only. Under Linux, I use an external editor as superuser to edit it.
2) Go to line 811. You should see this:
temptext = text('Parent',tempaxes,'Position',[.5 .5], ...
'HorizontalAlignment','center','FontSize',22, ...
'Interpreter','latex');
Change the value of 'Fontsize' to something larger; I used 30.
3) Go to line 747. You should see this:
swapTexForImg(dom,equationNode,outputDir,fullFilename,equationText,newSize(2),newSize(1))
Change that to
swapTexForImg(dom,equationNode,outputDir,fullFilename,equationText,newSize(2)/scale,newSize(1)/scale)
where scale is the scale factor of your liking. Might have to play with it a bit until you get it right; I used 2.
4) Save the file. Also keep a backup of the original.
5) In the MATLAB command prompt, enter:
rehash toolboxcache
followed by:
clear functions
6) Run publish again.
This should do the job for the PDF. I haven't tried it for HTML, but it should also work. In case of HTMl, don't forget to delete the images created previously.

How to export non-blurry eps images?

I'm exporting an image in Matlab using the eps format, but it smooths the image. Matlab does not blur the image using other formats such as png. I would like to know how to export a non-blurry image with eps format. Here is the resulting image using png:
And here is the resulting image using eps:
UPDATE:
The problem is reproducible on a Mac, and the issue is with the eps renderer rather than MATLAB. For e.g., saving imagesc(rand(20)) and viewing with Preview and GSview results in the following:
Preview screenshot
GSview screenshot
Clearly, the information is not lost. It is just not interpreted/read correctly by some EPS viewers. The solution is simple: use GSview to view your eps images. You can download it from here
On Macs especially, if your end application is latex/pdflatex, you will have to explicitly set it to use GS/GSview, because otherwise, it will default to the Quartz engine, which is baked into the OS.
PREVIOUS ANSWER:
I am unable to reproduce the behavior your described. Here is the code I used, tested using R2010b on WinXP 32-bit:
M = fspecial('gaussian',[20 20],5);
imagesc(M)
print('-dpng','a.png')
print('-depsc2','b.eps')
a.png
b.eps
Perhaps this is an issue with your EPS viewer...
not sure why it works but you can try doing the following:
eps2eps oldfile newfile
does the trick for me (on a mac os)
At first I thought you were doing something incorrectly, but then I remembered that this was an issue that was bothering the hell out of me a year or so ago. I couldn't come up with a way to "fix" this behaviour and from what I've researched, this is most likely a bug and several others have had this problem too and there is no known solution. Of course, I could be wrong about the last part and there might be solutions out there that have come out since I looked for them.
Any way, my workaround this problem was to use pcolor with shading flat instead of imagesc. When you export this to an eps format it preserves the image correctly. Example:
pcolor(rand(20));
shading flat
print('-depsc','figure.eps')
NOTE: You might see the appearance of thin, faint white lines along the anti-diagonals of each little square (depends on the OS & viewer). These are the edges of the graphics primitives that are used to render the image. However, this is not a flaw in MATLAB's export, but rather a fault in rendering in your EPS/PDF viewer. For e.g., with the default settings in Preview on my mac, these lines show up, whereas with the default in Adobe Reader 9.4, they don't appear.
If anyone is still interested in a workaround: Open the .eps-file with text editor and search for "interpolate". You'll probably find "/Interpolate true def" two or three times. Replace "true" with "false" and be happy :)
A note regarding Yoda's answer: in Preview in Mac OS X, you can make the thin white diagonal lines across each of the squares disappear by unchecking "Anti-alias text and screen art". Of course, the downside is that then any text (e.g. figure axes, etc) is not anti-aliased. Unfortunately, unchecking that has no effect on blurriness if you're using imagesc.
Another note is that if you use preview to make a pdf from your eps, the resulting pdf still displays correctly (non-blurry) when you open it in Acrobat.
I've been long struggling with this problem as well. So far, GSView is the only viewer I've found that displays the eps figures produced by Matlab (R2015b) correctly. eps2eps did not work for me (psutils 1.23).
The following eventually worked for me:
Export the figure to pdf, following the instructions here
pdf2ps file.pdf file.eps
I just wrote this simple drop-in replacement for imagesc. It doesn't support all but the most basic features, but I still hope it helps.
function h = imagesc4pdf(C)
[ny nx] = size(C);
px = bsxfun(#plus, [-0.5; 0.5; 0.5; -0.5], reshape(1:nx, [1 1 nx]));
py = bsxfun(#plus, [-0.5; -0.5; 0.5; 0.5], 1:ny);
n = numel(C);
px = reshape(repmat(px, [1 ny 1]), 4, n);
py = reshape(repmat(py, [1 1 nx]), 4, n);
h = patch(px, py, reshape(C,1,n), 'linestyle', 'none');
xlim([.5 nx+.5]);
ylim([.5 ny+.5]);
set(gca, 'ydir', 'reverse');
Apply opengl renderer to the figure
figure(gcf);
set(gcf,'renderer','opengl');
The blurring actually depends on the rendering software your viewer application or printer uses. To get good results all the time, make each pixel in your image an 8x8 block of pixels of the same color, i.e. resize the image like this:
im2 = imresize(im1, 8, 'nearest');
The blurring then only affects the pixels at the edge of each block. 8x8 blocks are best as they compress without nasty artifacts using DCT compression (sometimes used in eps files).
This page helped me a lot: http://tech.mof-mof.co.jp/blog/machine-learning-octave.html (written in Japanese, please use google translate for it)
And this is also helpful: Octave-Gnuplot-AquaTerm error: set terminal aqua enhanced title "Figure 1"...unknown terminal type"
I also answered at https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning/discussions/weeks/2/threads/Dh-aRfqSEeaHSQ6l4xnh6g.
I reinstalled gnuplot like this:
$ brew cask install xquartz
$ brew cask install aquaterm
$ brew uninstall gnuplot
$ brew install gnuplot --with-aquaterm --with-x11 --with-qt # you can show other options by `$ brew options gnuplot`
You may edit ~/.octaverc like this:
setenv("GNUTERM", "qt")
and in octave window, after typing "system gnuplot", then
set pm3d interpolate 2, 2
After saving the file, open octave-cli.app, and type
imagesc(magic(3)), colorbar
I got this.