{"id":1376,"date":"2012-08-21T10:52:48","date_gmt":"2012-08-21T15:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/community\/?p=1376"},"modified":"2016-04-01T20:56:58","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T00:56:58","slug":"mastering-matlab-markup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/community\/2012\/08\/21\/mastering-matlab-markup\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastering MATLAB Markup"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my completely biased opinion, one of the most useful features in Cody<\/a>, Trendy<\/a>, and MATLAB Answers<\/a> is the ability to use MATLAB Markup to format text. Formatted code blocks, embedded links, and emphasized text, as used in Matt’s uicontrol answer<\/a> and @bmtran’s description of his popular n-dimensional multiplication problem<\/a>, really help readers understand what’s going on in the post.<\/p>\n

MATLAB Mark-What?<\/h3>\n

If you haven’t used these applications, MATLAB Markup is an easy way to format plain text for conversion to HTML. For example, you might type:<\/p>\n

To *boldly* go...<\/code><\/p>\n

This is converted to HTML:<\/p>\n

To <b>boldly<\/b> go...<\/code><\/p>\n

and displayed looking nice and polished:<\/p>\n

To boldly<\/strong> go…<\/div>\n

The Secret Identity of MATLAB Markup<\/h3>\n

Plain-text-to-HTML markup languages are nothing new. Wikipedia is built with one<\/a>. I’ve been known to write my grocery lists in Markdown<\/a>. And MATLAB Markup has a well established ancestor: the text markup used in the MATLAB publish<\/a> tool.<\/p>\n

Check out the n-dimensional Cody question (linked to above), ready for MATLAB to publish as HTML. Note the asterisks for bold and underscores for italic.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a><\/p>\n

Tips and Tricks<\/h3>\n

1. Remember to insert blank lines above and below paragraph markup<\/h4>\n

Blocks of code, images, and bulleted or numbered lists require a blank line above and below the markup. While this markup doesn’t work:<\/p>\n

A familiar plot:
\n<<http:\/\/mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/images\/surf.gif>>
\n<\/code><\/p>\n

this markup does:<\/p>\n

A familiar plot:\r\n\r\n<<http:\/\/mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/images\/surf.gif>><\/pre>\n
2. Nest markup as needed<\/h4>\n
The convention on MATLAB Answers for linking to MathWorks documentation illustrates the usefulness of combining markup. Answerers are encouraged to format links with the name of the function in a monospaced font: publish<\/tt><\/a>. In MATLAB Markup, this looks like:<\/p>\n
<https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/help\/releases\/R2012a\/techdoc\/ref\/publish.html |publish|><\/code><\/p>\n
3. Use HTML entities when you need to mark up the markup<\/h4>\n
Sometimes you’ll want to include markup characters while preventing their automatic conversion to HTML. If I typed:<\/p>\n
Absolute value is displayed as |abs_val|<\/code><\/p>\n
I’d get the following output:<\/p>\n
Absolute value is displayed as abs_val<\/tt><\/div>\n
Instead of using the pipe character (|), I use the HTML entity<\/a> &124;<\/tt>. A full list of relevant HTML entities appears on the MATLAB Markup help page<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Absolute value is displayed as &#124;abs_val&#124;<\/code><\/p>\n
and get the following output:<\/p>\n
Absolute value is displayed as |abs_val|<\/div>\n
Resources<\/h3>\n
If you want to learn more about MATLAB Markup or publishing from MATLAB, here are some great resources:<\/p>\n