Table of Contents
Looking at What Is Already Installed
When MATLAB is first installed, it usually comes with a collection of additional toolboxes, depending on your license or installation choices. Exploring which toolboxes are available on your system helps you understand what specialized capabilities you already have before you consider installing more.
This chapter focuses on discovering and inspecting installed toolboxes, both from the MATLAB Desktop and from the command line. It does not cover how to add or purchase new ones, nor how to use specific toolbox functions in detail.
Viewing Installed Toolboxes with the Desktop
The most visual way for a beginner to see which toolboxes are installed is through the MATLAB Desktop. The exact layout can change slightly between versions, but the general idea is similar.
In the top area of the MATLAB window, you will usually find a section related to add-ons or toolboxes. Look for an "Add-Ons" button in the toolstrip. Clicking this will open an interface that shows installed products and available add-ons. MATLAB distinguishes between the core product and additional toolboxes, but they are listed together as products associated with your license.
Within this interface, you can view a list of items such as "Signal Processing Toolbox", "Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox", or "Image Processing Toolbox". Products that are already installed are typically marked clearly. You can click on an installed toolbox to see a short description, version information, and sometimes a link to documentation or examples.
This graphical view is helpful when you are exploring for the first time, because you can quickly skim through a list of names and short summaries to see what stands out and might be relevant to your work.
Using `ver` to List Products from the Command Line
To get a text based list of installed products, you can use the ver command in the Command Window. This command is simple and gives you version and license information for MATLAB and all installed toolboxes.
Type:
verThe output lists each installed product in a block of text that typically includes the name, version, release, and sometimes installation date. For example, you might see entries like:
MATLAB Version: 9.x
...
Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox Version: 12.x
...
Signal Processing Toolbox Version: 8.x
...This is useful when you need to know exactly which toolboxes and versions are available, for example when following instructions that require a minimum version, or when reporting your software setup to someone else.
You can also store this information in a variable to examine it programmatically. The command
v = ver;
returns a structure array where each element corresponds to one installed product. You can then inspect fields such as v(i).Name or v(i).Version. As a simple example, you might want to list only the names of all installed products by extracting the Name field.
Checking for a Specific Toolbox Programmatically
Sometimes you only care whether a particular toolbox is installed or licensed, not the full list. MATLAB provides functions that help you answer this question in code, which is especially useful if you are writing scripts that may run on different machines with different toolbox configurations.
One simple approach is to search the output of ver. For example, you might check whether "Signal Processing Toolbox" appears in the Name fields of the ver structure. This method looks like:
v = ver;
names = {v.Name};
hasSignal = any(strcmp(names, 'Signal Processing Toolbox'));
If hasSignal is true, then that toolbox appears in the ver list.
A more precise way is to use the licensing related functions. One commonly used function is license. If you know the feature name for a toolbox, you can test:
tf = license('test', 'signal_toolbox');
If tf is 1, then the corresponding license is available. If 0, it is not. This method is useful in scripts that need to respond gracefully when a required toolbox is missing.
In more recent versions, you may also encounter functions that list installed add ons or check for them by name. The idea is always to query MATLAB from code about what is available, so that your scripts can adapt instead of failing unexpectedly.
Exploring Toolbox Contents with `help` and `doc`
Once you know a toolbox is installed, the next step is to explore its contents at a high level. Each toolbox typically comes with its own collection of functions, classes, and sometimes apps. You can start exploring in several ways.
From the Command Window, you can use doc without arguments to open the main Documentation Center. On the side or in the contents pane you will see entries grouped under "Products". Each installed toolbox appears here, and you can click on it to see its main documentation page. These pages usually include overviews, examples, and links to function reference pages.
You can also access documentation for a toolbox by typing its name into the search box in the Documentation Center. For example, searching for "Signal Processing Toolbox" opens its product page if it is installed. From there you can navigate to categories such as "Getting Started" or "Functions".
On the command line, help provides a quick textual overview. Many toolboxes have a main toolbox folder name that you can use with help to see a summary. For example, you might try:
help signalor
help imagesThe output often lists topics or subfolders associated with that toolbox and provides short descriptions, which is a quick way to see what is available without leaving the Command Window.
Using the Function Browser to Discover Toolbox Functions
The MATLAB Editor and some parts of the Desktop integrate a function browser. When you type a function name in a script or command and hover over it, or when you begin typing and pause, MATLAB often suggests completions and shows which toolbox a function belongs to.
If you start typing something like im in the Editor, the auto suggestion list might show entries like imshow or imread and indicate that they belong to the Image Processing Toolbox. This contextual information is useful for exploration because it shows you functions you may not know yet and tells you which toolbox they come from.
Some environments also provide a browser of all functions, where you can browse by product or category. Using that, you can filter or sort functions to see what a specific toolbox offers. This helps you discover capabilities even if you do not know exact function names.
Recognizing Toolbox Functions in the Documentation
When you read MATLAB documentation or examples, it is important to know when a function requires a specific toolbox. In the function reference pages in the Documentation Center, there is usually a clear note indicating which product a function belongs to. Near the top of a page, you might see a line such as "Signal Processing Toolbox" or "Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox".
If your system does not have that toolbox, you may still be able to read the documentation online, but trying to use the function in MATLAB will produce an error about an undefined function or missing product. By contrast, if that toolbox is installed, the function is available and will be listed in ver and in the product documentation.
Being able to recognize this product label in documentation is an important part of exploring installed toolboxes, because it prevents confusion between core MATLAB functions and toolbox specific ones.
Exploring Example Files and Demos in Toolboxes
Many toolboxes provide example scripts and live scripts that show how to apply their functions to real tasks. Exploring these examples is a practical way to understand what a toolbox can do.
From the Documentation Center, the main page of a toolbox usually has a section titled something like "Examples" or "Featured Examples". Clicking on these opens step by step demonstrations. If the toolbox is installed, you can often open these examples directly in MATLAB, run them, and modify them to experiment.
In addition, some MATLAB versions include a "Examples" or "Demos" entry under the "Help" or "Home" sections. There you may see examples grouped by product. Selecting a toolbox from this list reveals a gallery of example projects and smaller how to files. This is a very effective way to explore an installed toolbox without needing to know function names in advance.
Using `which` to Identify Toolbox Origin of a Function
When you encounter a function name and want to know which toolbox provides it, the which command is very helpful. For instance, suppose you want to find out where fft comes from. You can type:
which fftThe output shows the full path to the file that defines the function. In many cases, the folder path contains a subfolder name that clearly identifies the toolbox. This lets you distinguish between core MATLAB functions and toolbox functions, and between different versions of the same function if they exist.
If a function does not exist on your current path, which will indicate that it is not found. This is another way to confirm whether a toolbox function is actually available on your installation.