Fonts Preferences for Desktop Tools :: Desktop (Desktop Tools and Development Environment)

Desktop Tools and Development Environment

Fonts Preferences for Desktop Tools

Use desktop font preferences to specify the font characteristics for MATLAB desktop tools. The font characteristics are

Name (also called family or type), for example, SansSerif
Style, for example, bold
Size in points, for example, 12 points

Select File -> Preferences -> Fonts to set fonts for desktop tools. You can set some font options differently for printing--see Printing and Page Setup Options for Desktop Tools.

Image of Preferences dialog box, showing Fonts panel. Use the desktop code font and desktop text font to easily apply the same font to all tools that display code or text, respectively.

Desktop Code Font and Desktop Text Font

You specify separate font characteristics for tools that primarily display code (Desktop code font), such as the Command Window, and tools that primarily display text (Desktop text font), such as the Current Directory browser. Many users prefer that code display in a monospace font to provide better alignment, and prefer a more narrow font style for text information. With the desktop code font preference, you set just one preference to apply a monospace style to all tools that display code (except the Help and Web browsers). Similarly, you can set just one preference to apply a text font to all desktop tools that display text.

The following illustrations show how the Editor/Debugger would look using a monospace font and a proportional font. Note that a monospace font is useful when you care about alignment, but a proportional font uses less space.

Image of Editor with three lines of text in 10 point Monospaced font.

Image of Editor with three lines of text in 10 point San Serif, a proportional font.

Default Font Settings. Default settings are listed in the following table. Note that Lucida Console approximates the fixedsys font available in earlier versions of MATLAB.

Font Type
Default Characteristics and Sample
Tools Using Font Type by Default

Desktop code font
Monospaced, Plain, 10 point
Image of Monospaced font.

Command History

Command Window

Editor/Debugger

Desktop text font
SansSerif, Plain, 10 point
Image of proportional font.

Array Editor

Current Directory browser

Help Navigator

HTML Proportional Text. This is the font used for noncode text in the Web browser (including, for example, cell publishing HTML reports), Profiler, and Help browser display pane. You cannot change the font style for HTML Proportional Text. Changes to size affect noncode and code text.

Workspace browser

Font Type	Default Characteristics and Sample	Tools Using Font Type by Default
Desktop code font	Monospaced, Plain, 10 point	Command History Command Window Editor/Debugger
Desktop text font	SansSerif, Plain, 10 point	Array Editor Current Directory browser Help Navigator HTML Proportional Text. This is the font used for noncode text in the Web browser (including, for example, cell publishing HTML reports), Profiler, and Help browser display pane. You cannot change the font style for HTML Proportional Text. Changes to size affect noncode and code text. Workspace browser

When you change a font characteristic for Desktop code font, the characteristic takes effect for all tools that use the desktop code font. The same is true when you change a font characteristic for Desktop text font.

After changing a characteristic, a sample in the dialog box shows how it will look. Click Apply or OK to make the change take effect in the desktop tools.

See Also

About Preferences.

Fonts, Colors, and Other Preferences Custom Fonts Preferences