No text=none in TikZ?

Question

In TikZ, there are draw=none and fill=none options to turn off stroking and filling operations. However, there doesn't appear to be a corresponding text=none option. If I try \tikz \node[text=none] {X};, I get the error message "Package xcolor Error: Undefined color `none'." (The text=red option does work as expected.)

• Is there indeed no text=none option?
• What are alternatives? Is it reasonable to use text opacity=0, or is there something better?

I'm asking because I would like to create an "empty" node of the same size as a given image or text. By referencing the anchors of this "empty" node, I can then animate the image or text moving in to occupy the same space. The following is an example of what I'm trying to accomplish. It uses text opacity=0 based on @percusse's suggestion.

\documentclass{minimal}
\usepackage{animate}
\usepackage{tikz}

\usetikzlibrary{calc}

\begin{document}

\begin{animateinline}[autoplay,loop]{10}
  \multiframe{11}{iframe=0+1}{
    \begin{tikzpicture}[every node/.style={draw}]
      \node[text opacity=0] (source) {Text};
      \node[text opacity=0] (target) at (2,2) {Text};

      \node at ($(source)!\iframe/10!(target)$) {Text};
    \end{tikzpicture}
  }
\end{animateinline}

\end{document}

• Given this ultimate goal, is it preferable to use something like \node {\phantom{Text}};?

Answer 1

If you don't need the text then it shouldn't be there anyway. Either you enlarge the node with minimum width,height,inner sep etc. or you can use the text opacity key comfortably.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[text opacity=0,draw=red,fill=yellow!25] (a) {Text};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

If you also need some placeholder for a text, you can go slightly esoteric and get the width depth height info beforehand e.g. just for the width;

\begin{tikzpicture}
\pgfmathparse{width{"Text"}}
\edef\mywidth{\pgfmathresult}
\node[minimum width=\mywidth pt,draw=red,fill=yellow!25] (a) {};
\end{tikzpicture}

Answer 2

you can use \phantom{Text}

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

\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw=red,fill=yellow!25] (a) {\phantom{Text}};
\end{tikzpicture}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw=red,fill=yellow!25] (a) {{Text}};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Answer 3

And why not : text = yellow!25 ?

and like Andrew wrote in his comment : \node[yellow!25,fill,draw=red] (a) {Text}; in this case, you set the colors for text, draw and fill.

draw and fill are different options. If you don't use these options, by default the shape is not draw and not filled but with text (it's equivalent to draw=false), the text is always displayed and by default the color used is black.

If you write \node[name=s] (a) {Text}; the name of the node is a, if it was possible to write \node[text=none] (a) {Text}; the text will be Text. text is a color; if you want you can define : \definecolor{none}{rgb}{1,1,1} and it's possible to define none to be the fill color.

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[text=yellow!25,draw=red,fill=yellow!25] (a) {Text};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}