Missing spaces in uitable column name

When multiple length spaces are included in the specification for the ColumnName property, they end up as single spaces which is very irritating. Replacing the cell array with a string array makes no difference. Is there any solution?

fig = uifigure;
tbl = uitable(fig, 'data', rand(4,3));
tbl.ColumnName = {'a1     1', 'a2     2', 'a3     3'};    

Answer 1

[Jaswanth]

Hi Gordon,

When you specify column names for a uitable in MATLAB and include multiple spaces in the names, MATLAB's default behaviour is to condense multiple spaces into a single space. As a workaround you can use significant whitespace character which is char(160) for Nonbreaking space.

Kindly refer to the code snippet below, where Nonbreaking space has been utilized.

fig = uifigure;
tbl = uitable(fig, 'data', rand(4,3));
% Define column names with non-breaking spaces i.e., char(160)
k = char(160);
tbl.ColumnName = {['a1' k k k '1'], ['a2' k k k k k '2'], ['a3' k k k k k k k k k k '3']};

Please refer to the following image which is output of the code provided above.

Please go through the following MathWorks documentations to learn more about significant whitespace characters: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/strtrim.html?searchHighlight=char%28160%29&s_tid=srchtitle_support_results_4_char%2528160%2529#:~:text=Significant%20Whitespace%20Character

I hope the information provided above is helpful in accomplishing your task.