Tex support is not implemented - so no surprise, that it doesn't work for you.
Instead you could try to use MathML ( or use texvc to translate Tex to MathML ). In the Qwt 6.x release candidates the MathML text engine is part of the default build process, with Qwt 5.x you have some extra work to download and patch the code from the Qt solution package ( read the READMEs ).
Uwe
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