# Labeled Number Line

I am transferring a professor's .doc files to LaTeX so that we can do more sophisticated formatting and I ran across a problem.

I would like to recreate this number line in LaTeX.

Help with which package to use and which commands to study would be a great help.

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–  alfC Aug 20 '12 at 22:59

You can use TikZ; the manual is great and contains numerous examples; in the following example, the basic constructs are \node and \draw:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
% a straight line segment
\draw (0.5,0) -- (10.5,0);
% the ticks and their labels
\foreach \x  in {1,...,10}
\draw[xshift=\x cm] (0pt,2pt) -- (0pt,-1pt) node[below,fill=white] {\the\numexpr\x +112\relax};
% the thicker segment
\draw[ultra thick] (2.06,0) -- (8.94,0);
% the labels
\node[fill=white,draw=black,circle,inner sep=2pt,label=above:{$L_1=114.06$}] at (2.12,0) {};
\node[fill=white,draw=black,circle,inner sep=2pt,label=above:{$L_1=119.94$}] at (8.9,0) {};
\node at (5.5,-0.8) {$\mu$};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

And here's a variation using pgfplots (which internally uses TikZ and is very useful for plots):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgfplots}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
axis y line=none,
axis lines=left,
axis line style={-},
xmin=112.5,
xmax=121.5,
ymin=0,
ymax=1,
xlabel=$\mu$,
scatter/classes={o={mark=*}},
restrict y to domain=0:1,
xtick={113,114,...,121}
]
\addplot table [y expr=0,meta index=1, header=false] {
114.06 o
119.94 o
};
\node[coordinate,label=above:{$L_1=114.06$}] at (axis cs:114.06,0.05) {};
\node[coordinate,label=above:{$L_2=119.94$}] at (axis cs:119.94,0.05) {};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

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What do the ymin and ymax do? –  soandos Aug 21 '12 at 4:06
@soandos >.>, the produced graph has a lower bound of 112.5 and an upper bound of 121.5, let's play "pin the tail on the observable." –  Jeff Langemeier Aug 21 '12 at 4:30
@JeffLangemeier As far as I can tell it slightly changes the height of L1 and L2 (tried 10,100,1000 for ymax) –  soandos Aug 21 '12 at 5:12
@soandos, And now I get red on my face, yes, the y bound handles the vertical, but since a line graph has no vertical it doesn't really do squat. Tired-dyslexia causes y and x confusion tonight, stellar. –  Jeff Langemeier Aug 21 '12 at 5:36
@JeffLangemeier don't sweat it –  soandos Aug 21 '12 at 5:38

You don't really need any extra packages for that kind of diagram, LaTeX can do that unaided:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
\newcounter{nn}
\setlength\unitlength{2pt}

\begin{picture}(100,100)

\put(10,60){$L_1=114.06$}
\put(70,60){$L_2=119.94$}
\put(50,30){$\mu$}
\put(0,50){\line(1,0){100}}
\multiput(10,50)(10,0){9}{\line(0,1){5}}
\setcounter{nn}{113}%
\multiput(10,40)(10,0){9}{\makebox(0,0){\thenn\stepcounter{nn}}}

\thicklines
\put(20,50){\circle{3}}
\put(80,50){\circle{3}}

\linethickness{2pt}
\put(20,50){\line(1,0){60}}
\end{picture}

\end{document}
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