How to Convert Text to Uppercase and Special Formats in MATLAB?

Hey everyone,

I’m working on a project where I need to dynamically convert text to different formats in MATLAB. Specifically, I'm dealing with:

• Converting text to uppercase and lowercase.
• Applying styles like bold or italic text for use in GUI components.
• Removing extra spaces and line breaks from strings to clean up user inputs.
• Reversing text or transforming it into special formats for visualization purposes.

I’ve been able to handle basic string manipulations using upper(), lower(), and regexprep() functions, but I’m running into issues when it comes to more complex transformations (like bubble text, upside-down text, or generating superscript).

Is there a streamlined way in MATLAB to handle such cases, or would it require writing custom functions? I came across a tool that offers various text transformations (like uppercase, lowercase, bubble text, and even specialized formats) that made me wonder if there's a way to integrate similar functionalities into MATLAB. You can check out some examples here.

Has anyone tried implementing advanced text formatting in MATLAB, or is there a toolbox that supports this?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or guidance!

[Stephen23]

What is "bubble text" ?

When I searched the internet for this term I got various results, it is unclear which of them you might mean.

"I’ve been able to handle basic string manipulations using upper(), lower(), and regexprep() functions, but I’m running into issues when it comes to more complex transformations (like bubble text, upside-down text, or generating superscript)."

You are mixing up plain text with formatted text. Not the same things at all.

[Kishore]

"Bubble text" refers to text that’s styled with a rounded, puffy appearance, often resembling the look of comic book speech bubbles or playful typography. It’s commonly used for creative designs, social media posts, or adding a fun, eye-catching effect to text. You can easily create bubble text using online tools like the TextAlter Bubble Text Generator.

[Stephen23]

"Bubble text" seem to be simply the Enclosed Alphanumeric characters defined by Unicode:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosed_Alphanumerics

sprintf('\x24bd\x24d4\x24db\x24db\x24de \x24cc\x24de\x24e1\x24db\x24d3')

ans = 'Ⓗⓔⓛⓛⓞ Ⓦⓞⓡⓛⓓ'

Note that Unicode also provides some superscript and subscript characters (unfortunately spread over many blocks):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_subscripts_and_superscripts

sprintf('Hello \x1d42\x1d52\x02b3\x02e1\x1d48')

ans = 'Hello ᵂᵒʳˡᵈ'

To use them just put all of those character codes in a lookup table. That is all those websites do.

For a project like this you need to investigate what Unicode defines.

[Walter Roberson]

Note: using advanced Unicode characters such as these, is not compatible with using 'LaTex' interpreter. It is compatible with using interpreter 'none' or 'TeX'

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

A non-trivial problem that you will run into, is that styles and "special formats" cannot be directly encoded into text.

You can uitextarea() or uicontrol() style 'text' or text() with FontWeight 'bold', or with FontAngle 'italic'. However, this will apply to the entire text area, not just to selected characters.

If you use text() then there is the additional option of 'Interpreter', 'text' or 'Iatex'. These permit you to submit encoded strings that will be interpreted. A list of supported TeX encodings is at https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/text.html#f68-481090_sep_shared-Interpreter

If you use uitable() with a uifigure() then you can add a uistyle component. One of the supported uistyle components is 'Interpreter', 'html' https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/uistyle.html#mw_5d6181cc-0262-479d-ba56-003cdd71e6c8 or 'Interpreter', 'latex' https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/uistyle.html#mw_bc609e92-e251-4225-9da5-4392eb3581ac

[Walter Roberson]

upside-down text is most easily done by flipping the text end-for-end and then using text() with Rotation property... provided that all of the text is to be affected.

Superscript text is most easily done by using text() with TeX or LaTeX encoding, and using '^{' followed by the text followed by '}' such as

e^{\pi i}

[Kishore]

Thank you for the suggestion. I will try it today...