How can I make an Horizontal tab (\t) using TEXT and TeX ?

I manage to display 2 lines in bold as follows:

str =sprintf('{\\bfline1:} \n {\\bfline2:}')
text(0.2,0.3, str)

But if I replace \n (new line) by \t (horizontal tab) :

str =sprintf('{\\bfline1:} \t  {\\bfline2:}')
text(0.2,0.3, str)

I get an empty square box. How can I tell MATLAB to interpret \t as an escape character? I am looking for a solution using \t if possible ant not a workaroung using char(a number) or making myself the corresponding spaces ;)

I get a horizontal tab... Windows7 - 12a

Answer 1

I cannot reproduce your problem. Your code works as expected here, R2012a,64bit,Win7.

All of us in my office can reproduce the issue in R2011b, R2012a and the new R2012b under Windows XP.

str =sprintf('{\\bfline1:} \t  {\\bfline2:}')
text(0.2,0.3, str)

only works for us under LInux 11b

Thanks for your attempts

Answer 2

I submitted a Service request to The MathWorks Technical Support. This is their answer :

I understand that '\t' is not recognized as a horizontal tab in your code. I was able to reproduce this issue at my end on a windows XP machine.It works as expected on Windows 7. It seems like a bug and I will forward your use case to our Development Team and they will consider to address it in the future release of MATLAB. As a work around as you had suggested on MATLAB answers you can use char(a particular number) or empty spaces. I apologize for the inconvenience.