changing format of number displayed on figure

Hi, I have 2 sets of data 'a' and 'b' which I have plotted in a figure. I've then integrated under this curve using 'trapz' and then displaying this result on the figure. This is all successful however I want to change the format of the displayed number to scientific notation instead of a long number. I've used 'format longEng' but this is unsuccessful. (This is all within a for loop).

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          plot(x,y);
          xlabel('x data')
          ylabel('y data');
          legend('Background Corrected');
          title(figure_caption);
          set(gca, 'YScale', 'log');
          format longEng;
          integration2 = trapz(x, y); 
          integration_text2 = 'curve integration =';
          integration_info2 = [integration_text2, ' ', num2str(integration2)];
          disp(integration_info2);
          dim = [0 0.95 0.05 0.05];
          annotation('textbox', dim, 'String', integration_info2, 'FitBoxToText', 'on');      
      end
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thanks

[Birdman]

Share your entire code and all necessary variables.

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

The format function affects only how numeric arrays are displayed in the Command Window. To affect how they are written to a char vector or string that you can use as the String property of a graphics object, use sprintf or specify a precision or format specifier as the second input to the num2str function. See the documentation pages for those functions for examples.

[D F]

Thanks! I've used formatspec in the num2str