How to draw a coordinate system with LaTeX?

Question

I want to draw a coordinate system like this:

I would like to specify the width and height of the coordinate system and where the origin begins (upper left corner). I also want to specify the x and y axes with arrows. Additionally the end of the x and y axis should be indicated with the text "200px".

I'm a LaTeX beginner and am not sure how to do that.

Can anyone recommend a latex package for it?

Answer 1

Tikz or pstricks are more powerful but LaTeX has a built in coordinate drawing system, and you really don't need to load an external package for this (although I loaded color)

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

\setlength\unitlength{10pt}

\begin{picture}(20,10)(0,-10)
\thicklines
\put(0,0){\line(1,0){20}}
\put(0,0){\line(0,-1){10}}
\put(0,-10){\line(1,0){20}}
\put(20,0){\line(0,-1){10}}
\put(0,0){\circle*{.3}}
\put(0,0){\vector(1,0){4}}
\put(0,0){\vector(0,-1){4}}
\thinlines
\put(0,0){\makebox(0,0)[tl]{\tiny(0,0)}}
\put(4,0){\makebox(0,0)[cb]{\tiny x}}
\put(0,-4){\makebox(0,0)[cr]{\tiny y`}}
\color[rgb]{.8,.8,.8}
\multiput(1,0)(1,0){19}{\line(0,-1){10}}
\multiput(0,-1)(0,-1){9}{\line(1,0){20}}

\end{picture}%


\end{document}

Answer 2

The TikZ package is great! I did the following:

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

    % TikZ picture with origin upper left
    \begin{tikzpicture}[yscale=-1] 
        % 4x4 grid
        \draw (0, 0) grid (4, 4);
        % origin point
        \draw [color=blue, fill=blue] (0, 0) circle (0.1);
        % x-axis
        \draw [thick,->] (0, 0) -- (4.5, 0);
        % y-axis
        \draw [thick,->] (0, 0) -- (0, 4.5);
        % origin label
        \node at (-0.1, -0.5) {(0, 0)};
        % x-axis label
        \node at (4.5, -0.5) {200px};
        % y-axis label
        \node at (0, 5) {200px};
    \end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Output:

Very helpful: A brief introduction into TikZ