(octave.info)Use of the interpreter Property

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15.2.8 Use of the ‘interpreter’ Property
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All text objects—such as titles, labels, legends, and text—include the
property "interpreter" that determines the manner in which special
control sequences in the text are rendered.

   The interpreter property can take three values: "none", "tex",
"latex".  If the interpreter is set to "none" then no special rendering
occurs—the displayed text is a verbatim copy of the specified text.
Currently, the "latex" interpreter is not implemented for on-screen
display and is equivalent to "none".  Note that Octave does not parse or
validate the text strings when in "latex" mode—it is the responsibility
of the programmer to generate valid strings which may include wrapping
sections that should appear in Math mode with ’$’ characters.

   The "tex" option implements a subset of TeX functionality when
rendering text.  This allows the insertion of special glyphs such as
Greek characters or mathematical symbols.  Special characters are
inserted by using a backslash (\) character followed by a code, as shown
in Note: Table 15.1.

   Besides special glyphs, the formatting of the text can be changed
within the string by using the codes

               \bf            Bold font
               \it            Italic font
               \sl            Oblique Font
               \rm            Normal font

   These codes may be used in conjunction with the { and } characters to
limit the change to a part of the string.  For example,

     xlabel ('{\bf H} = a {\bf V}')

where the character ’a’ will not appear in bold font.  Note that to
avoid having Octave interpret the backslash character in the strings,
the strings themselves should be in single quotes.

   It is also possible to change the fontname and size within the text

        \fontname{FONTNAME}           Specify the font to use
        \fontsize{SIZE}               Specify the size of the font to use

   The color of the text may also be changed inline using either a
string (e.g., "red") or numerically with a Red-Green-Blue (RGB)
specification (e.g., [1 0 0], also red).

        \color{COLOR}                 Specify the color as a string
        \color[rgb]{R G B}            Specify the color numerically

   Finally, superscripting and subscripting can be controlled with the
’^’ and ’_’ characters.  If the ’^’ or ’_’ is followed by a { character,
then all of the block surrounded by the { } pair is superscripted or
subscripted.  Without the { } pair, only the character immediately
following the ’^’ or ’_’ is changed.

Greek Lowercase
Letters
                   \alpha             \beta              \gamma
                   \delta             \epsilon           \zeta
                   \eta               \theta             \vartheta
                   \iota              \kappa             \lambda
                   \mu                \nu                \xi
                   \o                 \pi                \varpi
                   \rho               \sigma             \varsigma
                   \tau               \upsilon           \phi
                   \chi               \psi               \omega
Greek Uppercase
Letters
                   \Gamma             \Delta             \Theta
                   \Lambda            \Xi                \Pi
                   \Sigma             \Upsilon           \Phi
                   \Psi               \Omega
Misc Symbols
Type Ord
                   \aleph             \wp                \Re
                   \Im                \partial           \infty
                   \prime             \nabla             \surd
                   \angle             \forall            \exists
                   \neg               \clubsuit          \diamondsuit
                   \heartsuit         \spadesuit
“Large”
Operators
                   \int
Binary Operators
                   \pm                \cdot              \times
                   \ast               \circ              \bullet
                   \div               \cap               \cup
                   \vee               \wedge             \oplus
                   \otimes            \oslash
Relations
                   \leq               \subset            \subseteq
                   \in                \geq               \supset
                   \supseteq          \ni                \mid
                   \equiv             \sim               \approx
                   \cong              \propto            \perp
Arrows
                   \leftarrow         \Leftarrow         \rightarrow
                   \Rightarrow        \leftrightarrow    \uparrow
                   \downarrow
Openings and
Closings
                   \lfloor            \langle            \lceil
                   \rfloor            \rangle            \rceil
Alternate Names
                   \neq
Other
                   \ldots             \0                 \copyright
                   \deg

Table 15.1: Available special characters in TeX mode

15.2.8.1 Degree Symbol
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Conformance to both TeX and MATLAB with respect to the ‘\circ’ symbol is
impossible.  While TeX translates this symbol to Unicode 2218 (U+2218),
MATLAB maps this to Unicode 00B0 (U+00B0) instead.  Octave has chosen to
follow the TeX specification, but has added the additional symbol ‘\deg’
which maps to the degree symbol (U+00B0).