How to simplify a basic diagram

Question

I am a beginner in Latex, trying to use it for an industrial document. I have tried to add a simple electrical diagram using the following code. However it is not easy for me to adjust the location of the diagram in the page. Moreover there are probably better ways or tools. Would someone suggest a more elegant solution?

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[top=2cm, bottom=3cm, left=2cm, right=2 cm]{geometry} %Layout of page


\begin{document}

\begin{picture}(50,50)(-30,0)
\linethickness{1pt}

\put(0,50){\line (1,0){80}}
\put(50,50){\line (0,1){20}}
\put(60,50){\line (0,1){20}}
\put(70,50){\line (0,1){20}}
\put(80,50){\line (0,1){20}}

\put(48,75){1}
\put(58,75){3}
\put(68,75){5}
\put(78,75){7}

\put(0,40){\line (1,0){80,0}}
\put(50,40){\line (0,-1){20}}
\put(60,40){\line (0,-1){20}}
\put(70,40){\line (0,-1){20}}
\put(80,40){\line (0,-1){20}}

\put(48,5){2}
\put(58,5){4}
\put(68,5){6}
\put(78,5){8}

\end{picture}


\end{document}

I have added a short piece of code adding a ground wire. I have in mind to add to he right of the original schematic the same schematic, but with 20 wires and the short ground symbol between the two, slightly below. This placement does not matter too much, I am trying to understand wether all 3 diagrams should be a single block of code, or 3 that I could possibly locate individually...

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begin{picture}(50,20)(-270,-20) % Begin ground symbol
\linethickness{1pt}
\put(-70,10){\line (0,1){20}}
\put(-80,10){\line (1,0){20}}
\put(-75, 5){\line (1,0){10}}
\put(-72,0){\line (1,0){5}}
\end{picture} end % End ground symbol
\end{document}

Answer 1

I think there are two different questions here and I am not sure which one is that you ask: One is how to draw the diagram efficiently I guess,

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\foreach \x in {1,2,3,4} {
        \draw (0.3*\x ,2mm) -- (0.3*\x,9mm) 
        node[above] {\pgfmathparse{2*\x-1}\pgfmathprintnumber{\pgfmathresult}}     
        (0.3*\x,-2mm) -- (0.3*\x,-9mm) 
        node[below] {\pgfmathparse{2*\x}\pgfmathprintnumber{\pgfmathresult}};
}
\draw (1.2cm,-2mm) -- ++(-3cm,0) (1.2cm,2mm) -- ++(-3cm,0);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

which gives

,

the other one is how to place this in a page (which is not so clear as a question). If you can provide more details about the page (is it a presentation or a plain article? do you want to wrap some text around it? Is it just a figure? etc.) that you are designing we can help further.

EDIT I hope I got it right but here it goes:

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{scope}%--- I just put the first picture in a scope 
\foreach \x in {1,2,3,4} {
        \draw (0.35*\x ,2mm) -- (0.35*\x,9mm) 
        node[above] {\pgfmathparse{2*\x-1}\pgfmathprintnumber{\pgfmathresult}}     
        (0.35*\x,-2mm) -- (0.35*\x,-9mm) 
        node[below] {\pgfmathparse{2*\x}\pgfmathprintnumber{\pgfmathresult}};
}
\draw (1.4cm,-2mm) -- ++(-3cm,0) (1.4cm,2mm) -- ++(-3cm,0);
\end{scope}

\begin{scope}[xshift=5cm]%--- This moves the contents of this scope to the right
\foreach \x in {1,2,...,10} {
        \draw (0.35*\x ,2mm) -- (0.35*\x,9mm) 
        node[above] {\pgfmathparse{2*\x-1}\pgfmathprintnumber{\pgfmathresult}}     
        (0.35*\x,-2mm) -- (0.35*\x,-9mm) 
        node[below] {\pgfmathparse{2*\x}\pgfmathprintnumber{\pgfmathresult}};
}
\draw (3.5cm,-2mm) -- ++(-5cm,0) (3.5cm,2mm) -- ++(-5cm,0);
\end{scope}

% ground symbol does not require a scope anyway but convenient to place it 
% since I am not sure if I got the idea correctly
\begin{scope}[xshift=2.5cm,yshift=-2cm]
\draw (0,0) -- (0,1) (-0.7,0)--(0.7,0);
\draw (-4.5mm,-3mm) -- (4.5mm,-3mm);
\draw (-2mm,-6mm) -- (2mm,-6mm);
\end{scope}
\end{tikzpicture}

I hope I am somewhere close to what you described in your edit.

Answer 2

Admittedly, this is a bit crude but hopefully it points you in the right direction. Basically, this sets up a TikZ to path style that lets you draw the diagram at any position in your TikZ picture. Using the center, flushleft, flushright environments you should be able to put the picture in the right position in a figure (assuming you're using a figure environment ot present the picture).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}

\tikzset{my diagram/.style={to path={
         (\tikztostart) coordinate (a) -- (\tikztotarget) coordinate (b)
         ($(a)!0.4cm!+90:(b)$) coordinate (a')
         ($(b)!0.4cm!-90:(a)$) coordinate (b')
         \foreach \distance/\label in {0.0cm/1,0.2cm/3,0.4cm/5,0.6cm/7} {
             ($(b)!\distance!(a)$) coordinate (tmp) -- ($(tmp)!0.4cm!-90:(a)$)
             node[allow upside down,anchor=south,pos=1,sloped,rotate=-90] {\label}
         }
         ($(a)!0.2cm!-90:(b)$) coordinate (c)
         ($(b)!0.2cm!+90:(a)$) coordinate (d)
         (c) -- (d)
         ($(c)!0.4cm!-90:(d)$) coordinate (c')
         ($(d)!0.4cm!+90:(c)$) coordinate (d')
         \foreach \distance/\label in {0.0cm/2,0.2cm/4,0.4cm/6,0.6cm/8} {
             ($(d)!\distance!(c)$) coordinate (tmp) -- ($(tmp)!0.4cm!+90:(c)$)
             node[allow upside down,anchor=north,pos=1,sloped,rotate=+90] {\label}
         }}}}
\begin{tikzpicture}
   \draw (0,0) to[my diagram] (1.5,0);
   \draw (2,2) to[my diagram] (3.0,0);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Answer 3

run it with xelatex or latex->dvips->ps2pdf

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pst-node}
\def\Node#1{\rnode{#1}{#1}}

\begin{document} 

\pnode(0,-8mm){A}\hspace*{3cm}\Node{1}~\Node{3}~\Node{5}~\Node{7}
\psforeach{\iA}{1,3,5,7}{\ncangle[angleB=-90,nodesepB=2pt]{A}{\iA}}

\vspace{1.7cm}
\pnode(0,10mm){A}\hspace*{3cm}\Node{2}~\Node{4}~\Node{6}~\Node{8}
\psforeach{\iA}{2,4,6,8}{\ncangle[angleB=90,nodesepB=2pt]{A}{\iA}}
\end{document}