Create Custom Data Tips

Data tips appear when you hover over a data point. By default, data tips show the coordinates of the selected point. However, for some types of charts, you can customize the information that appears in the data tip, such as changing the labels or adding new rows.

Charts that support these customizations have a DataTipTemplate property, for example, Line objects created with the plot function.

Change Labels and Add Row

Open Live Script

Modify the contents of data tips on a scatter plot. First, load sample accident data and create the scatter plot. Then, create a data tip interactively or by using the datatip function. By default, data tips show the coordinates of the data point.

load('accidents.mat','hwydata','statelabel')
s = scatter(hwydata(:,5),hwydata(:,4));
dt = datatip(s,11246.7,1493);

Change the data tip labels from X and Y to Drivers (in thousands) and Fatalities by accessing the DataTipTemplate property of the plotted object and setting the Label properties.

s.DataTipTemplate.DataTipRows(1).Label = 'Drivers (in thousands)';
s.DataTipTemplate.DataTipRows(2).Label = 'Fatalities';

Add a new row to the data tip. For the label, use State. For the value, use the state names contained in the statelabel variable in your workspace.

row = dataTipTextRow('State',statelabel);
s.DataTipTemplate.DataTipRows(end+1) = row;

Show Table Values in Data Tips

Open Live Script

Modify the contents of data tips for a scatter plot to include values from a table. First, create a table from a sample spreadsheet of patient data. Plot the data. Then, create a data tip interactively or by using the datatip function.

tbl = readtable('patients.xls');
s = scatter(tbl.Height,tbl.Weight);
dt = datatip(s,64,142);

Change the data tip labels from X and Y to Height and Weight. Then, add a new row to the data tip that uses the label Age and shows the values from the Age column of the table.

s.DataTipTemplate.DataTipRows(1).Label = 'Height';
s.DataTipTemplate.DataTipRows(2).Label = 'Weight';
row = dataTipTextRow('Age',tbl.Age);
s.DataTipTemplate.DataTipRows(end+1) = row;

If you are using R2018b or earlier, customize the data tips by setting the UpdateFcn property of the datacursormode object instead of using the DataTipTemplate object.

Documentation