Format Text in the Live Editor

You can add formatted text, hyperlinks, tables, images, and equations to your live scripts and functions to create a presentable document to share with others. You also can check your text for spelling issues and change the font of the text.

Insert Text Items

To insert a new item, go to the Insert tab and select from the available options.

Option	Description	Additional Details
Code	Insert a blank line of code.	You can insert a code line before, after, or between text lines.
Section Break	Insert a section break.	You can insert a section break to divide your live script or function into manageable sections to evaluate individually. A section can consist of code, text, and output. For more information, see Create and Run Sections in Code.
Text	Insert a blank line of text.	A text line can contain formatted text, hyperlinks, images, or equations. You can insert a text line before, after, or between code lines.
Table of Contents	Insert a table of contents.	The table of contents contains a list of all the titles and headings in the document. If the document contains only one title, then it is not included in the table of contents. Only the title of the table of contents is editable. You can insert a table of contents only in text lines. If you insert a table of contents into a code line, MATLAB® places it directly above the current code section. When exporting a live script containing a table of contents to Microsoft® Word, by default, the table of contents in the resulting document does not include page numbers. To add page numbers, click the table of contents and select Update Table.
Code Example	Insert a formatted code example.	A code example is sample code that appears as indented and monospaced text. Select Plain to insert sample code as unhighlighted text. Select MATLAB to insert sample code as text highlighted according to MATLAB syntax.
Table	Insert a table.	You can insert tables only in text lines. If you insert a table into a code line, MATLAB places the table in a new text line directly under the selected code line. To specify the table size, select Table , move the cursor over the grid to highlight the numbers of rows and columns you want, and click to add the table. To create a larger table, click the table button , and specify the numbers of rows and columns in the dialog box. After inserting the table, you can modify its rows and columns: Insert or delete rows and columns — Right-click the table, select Table, and then select from the available insertion and deletion options. Resize columns — Click and drag the edge of the column. To reset the column widths, right-click and select Table > Reset Column Widths. Make the first row a header row — Right-click the table and select Table > Turn Header Row On.
Image	Insert an image.	You can insert images only in text lines. If you insert an image into a code line, MATLAB places the image in a new text line directly under the selected code line. To change the alternate text, alignment, and size of an image after inserting it, right-click the image and select Edit Image... from the context menu. Alt Text — Add text to the edit field to specify alternative text for the image. Alignment — Select from the available options to specify how the image aligns with the other items in the row. Size — To specify a size relative to the original image size, select Relative (%) and specify the width and height of the image as a percentage of the original image. To specify an absolute size, select Absolute (px) and specify the width and height of the image in pixels. Select Keep Aspect Ratio to maintain the aspect ratio while resizing. To return to the original image size, right-click the image and select Reset Image.
Hyperlink	Insert a hyperlink.	You can insert hyperlinks only in text lines. If you insert a hyperlink into a code line, MATLAB places the hyperlink in a new text line directly under the selected code line. Select Web page to insert a hyperlink to an external web page. Then, enter the URL of the web page. Select Location in existing document to insert a hyperlink to a specific location in a separate live script or live function. Enter or browse for the file path and then select a location in the document preview that displays on the right. Select Location in this document to insert a hyperlink that points to an existing location within the document. When prompted, click the desired location within the document to select it as the target. You also can use the Alt + Up Arrow and Alt + Down Arrow keyboard shortcuts. Location can be a code section, text paragraph, title, or heading. Linking to individual lines of text or code is not supported. Select Existing file to insert a hyperlink to a file. Then, enter the file path.
Equation	Insert an equation.	You insert add equations only in text lines. If you insert an equation into a code line, MATLAB places the equation in a new text line directly under the selected code line. For more information, see Insert Equations into the Live Editor.

Format Text

To format existing text, use any of the options included in the Live Editor tab Text section:

Format Type	Options
Text Style	Normal Heading 1 Heading 2 Heading 3 Title
Text Alignment	Align left Align center Align right
Lists	Numbered list Bulleted list
Standard Formatting	Bold Italic Underline Monospaced

To change the case of selected text or code from all uppercase to lowercase, or vice versa, select the text, right-click, and select Change Case. You also can press Ctrl+Shift+A. If the text contains both uppercase and lowercase text, MATLAB changes the case to all uppercase.

Checking Spelling

You can check for spelling issues in text lines and comments in your live scripts and functions. To enable spell checking, go to the View tab and click the Spelling button on. Words with a potential spelling issue are underlined in blue. To resolve the issue, click the word and select one of the suggested corrections. You also can choose to ignore the issue or add the flagged word to your local dictionary. To navigate between issues using the keyboard, use Alt+F7 and Alt+Shift+F7.

Spell checking is supported in US English for live code files (.mlx) and MATLAB code files (.m). To remove words from your local dictionary, go to your MATLAB preferences folder (the folder returned when you run prefdir) and edit the file dict/en_US_userDictionary.tdi.

Change Fonts and Colors

You can change the font, size, color, and formatting of text and code styles in the Live Editor.

To customize a text or code style for the current document, go to the Live Editor tab, and in the Text section, click the Customize styles button . Then, select the style that you want to customize and change the font, size, color, and formatting for the selected style. The Customize Styles dialog box shows a preview of each style.

The customized style applies only to the current document. To apply the customized style to all new live scripts as well, select the Use this configuration for new live scripts option.

To customize a text or code style for all open documents and all new documents, use the matlab.fonts Settings. The Live Editor updates all open live scripts and live functions to show the selected fonts. When you create new live scripts or functions, the selected fonts are applied as well.

For example, this code changes the color and style of titles in the Live Editor:

s = settings;
s.matlab.fonts.editor.title.Style.PersonalValue = {'bold'};
s.matlab.fonts.editor.title.Color.PersonalValue = [0 0 255 1]; 

To increase or decrease the displayed font size in the Live Editor, zoom in or out using the Ctrl + Plus (+) and Ctrl + Minus (-) keyboard shortcuts or by holding Ctrl and scrolling with the mouse. On macOS systems, use the Command key instead of the Ctrl key. The change in the displayed font size is not honored when exporting the live script to PDF, Microsoft Word, HTML, LaTeX, Markdown, or Jupyter^® notebooks.

Autoformatting

For quick formatting in live scripts and functions, you can use a combination of keyboard shortcuts and character sequences. Formatting appears after you enter the final character in a sequence.

This table shows a list of formatting styles and their available keyboard shortcuts and autoformatting sequences.

Formatting Style	Autoformatting Sequence	Keyboard Shortcut
Title	# text + Enter	Ctrl + Alt + L
Heading 1	## text + Enter	Ctrl + Shift + 1
Heading 2	### text + Enter	Ctrl + Shift + 2
Heading 3	#### text + Enter	Ctrl + Shift + 3
Section break with heading 1	%% text + Enter	With cursor at beginning of line with text: Ctrl + Shift + 1, then Ctrl + Alt + Enter
Section break	%% + Enter --- + Enter *** + Enter	Ctrl + Alt + Enter
Bulleted list	* text - text + text	Ctrl + Alt + U
Numbered list	number. text	Ctrl + Alt + O
Italic	*text* _text_	Ctrl + I
Bold	**text** __text__	Ctrl + B
Bold and italic	***text*** ___text___	Ctrl + B, then Ctrl + I
Monospace	`text` |text|	Ctrl + M
Underline	None	Ctrl + U
LaTeX equation	$LaTeX$	Ctrl + Shift + L
Hyperlink	URL + Space or Enter <URL> [Label](URL)	Ctrl + K
Trademark, service mark, and copyright symbols (™, ℠, ®, and ©)	(TM) (SM) (R) (C)	None

Note

Title, heading, section break, and list sequences must be entered at the beginning of a line.

Sometimes you want an autoformatting sequence such as *** to appear literally. To display the characters in the sequence, escape out of the autoformatting by pressing the Backspace key or by clicking Undo . For example, if you type ## text + Enter, a heading in the Heading 1 style with the word text appears. To undo the formatting style and simply display ## text, press the Backspace key. You only can escape out of a sequence directly after completing it. After you enter another character or move the cursor, escaping is no longer possible.

To revert the autoformatting for LaTeX equations and hyperlinks, use the Backspace key at any point.

To force formatting to reappear after escaping out of a sequence, click the Redo button. You only can redo an action directly after escaping it. After you enter another character or move the cursor, the redo action is no longer possible. In this case, to force the formatting to reappear, delete the last character in the sequence and type it again.

To disable all or certain autoformatting sequences, you can adjust the Editor/Debugger Autoformatting Preferences.