How to shorten the length of an arrow?

Question

I use tkz-graph.sty from Altermundus. When I make an arrow from vertex A to vertex B, the arrow is too long: it goes from the center of A to the center of B. Can I shorten the arrow on both ends by a factor? In PSTricks, I used nodesep, but that doesn't work in a tikzpicture.

Answer 1

You can use the shorten > and shorten < options. For example

\documentclass{minimal}  
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \fill (0,0) circle (0.05);
  \fill (2,0) circle (0.05);
  \draw[shorten >=0.5cm,shorten <=1cm,->] (0,0) -- (2,0);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

produces .

However, there are few situations where you have to use that directly. Usually it is better to choose an anchor of the node (eg. mynode.east) and maybe set the inner sep and outer sep options of the nodes.

Maybe if you post an example of what you are trying to achieve, we can figure out what the best approach in that case is.