Sometimes I would like to create a single picture with Tikz for later usage on Wikipedia or my Blog. This is my LaTeX Tikz template I use in such a situation:
The templates
latex-document.tex
\documentclass[varwidth=true, border=2pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{arrows,positioning}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
% Your Codes should be here
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
Standalone
Preview-Environment
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[pdftex,active,tightpage]{preview}
\setlength\PreviewBorder{2mm}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{arrows,positioning}
\begin{document}
\begin{preview}
\begin{tikzpicture}
% Your Codes should be here
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{preview}
\end{document}
Makefile
SOURCE = latex-document.tex
DELAY = 80
DENSITY = 300
make:
pdflatex $(SOURCE).tex -output-format=pdf
make clean
clean:
rm -rf $(TARGET) *.class *.html *.log *.aux
animatedGif:
pdfcrop $(SOURCE).pdf
convert -verbose -delay $(DELAY) -loop 0 -density $(DENSITY) $(SOURCE)-crop.pdf $(SOURCE).gif
make clean
transparentGif:
convert $(SOURCE).pdf -transparent white result.gif
make clean
svg:
pdf2svg $(SOURCE).pdf $(SOURCE).svg
# Necessary, as pdf2svg does not always create valid svgs:
inkscape $(SOURCE).svg --export-plain-svg=$(SOURCE).svg
# Alternatively, only this one (produces worse results):
#inkscape $(SOURCE).pdf --export-plain-svg=$(SOURCE).svg
Requirements
- LaTeX (How to install the latest LaTeX Version)
- make
- Inkscape
- pdf2svg
Test if you meet these requirements
Make sure that you have a valid LaTeX installation. pdflatex --version
should output something like:
pdfTeX 3.1415926-2.3-1.40.12 (TeX Live 2011)
kpathsea version 6.0.1
Copyright 2011 Peter Breitenlohner (eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX).
There is NO warranty. Redistribution of this software is
covered by the terms of both the pdfTeX copyright and
the Lesser GNU General Public License.
For more information about these matters, see the file
named COPYING and the pdfTeX source.
Primary author of pdfTeX: Peter Breitenlohner (eTeX)/Han The Thanh (pdfTeX).
Compiled with libpng 1.5.2; using libpng 1.5.2
Compiled with zlib 1.2.5; using zlib 1.2.5
Compiled with xpdf version 3.02pl5
Make sure you can execute Makefiles. make --version
should output something like this:
GNU Make 3.81
Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
This program built for i486-pc-linux-gnu
The command inkscape --version
should return:
Inkscape 0.47 r22583 (Apr 4 2010)
And pdf2svg --version
should return:
Usage: pdf2svg <in file.pdf> <out file.svg> [<page no>]
How to use it
You have to place the Makefile in the same folder as latex-document.tex. If you have done this and if you meet the requirements, you can execute:
make
: Generates a PDF file from latex-document.texmake svg
: Generates a SVG file from the generated PDF filemake transparentGif
: Generates a transparent Gif from the PDF filemake animatedGif
: If you have used multiple slides, this will create an animated Gif file. See How to visualize Graph algorithms with LaTeX for an example.
See also
- How to print Source Code with LaTeX
- Briefe mit LaTeX schreiben (A template for letters)
- Plotting function graphs with LaTeX