Block quote with big quotation marks

Question

How can I create a block quote enviroment with big quotation marks similar to the Cquote Template of Wikipedia?

Additionally it would be nice to place both quotation marks and quote in a colored box and to have the author closer to the citation.

Answer 1

Here's one solution using TikZ which defines a new environment using the framed package. You should preferably compile this with xelatex or lualatex, since it gives the easiest access to a wide range of fonts. I've added code to make it run under pdflatex as well.

The code has now been updated to allow some flexibility in the formatting of the different components of the quotation, and the environment takes two arguments:

Environment Syntax

 \begin{shadequote}[<alignment>]{<author>}
    text of quote
 \end{shadequote}

Code

% !TEX TS-program = xeLaTeX

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{ifxetex,ifluatex}
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\usepackage[svgnames]{xcolor}

\usepackage{tikz}

\usepackage{framed}

% conditional for xetex or luatex
\newif\ifxetexorluatex
\ifxetex
  \xetexorluatextrue
\else
  \ifluatex
    \xetexorluatextrue
  \else
    \xetexorluatexfalse
  \fi
\fi
%
\ifxetexorluatex%
  \usepackage{fontspec}
  \usepackage{libertine} % or use \setmainfont to choose any font on your system
  \newfontfamily\quotefont[Ligatures=TeX]{Linux Libertine O} % selects Libertine as the quote font
\else
  \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
  \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
  \usepackage{libertine} % or any other font package
  \newcommand*\quotefont{\fontfamily{LinuxLibertineT-LF}} % selects Libertine as the quote font
\fi

\newcommand*\quotesize{60} % if quote size changes, need a way to make shifts relative
% Make commands for the quotes
\newcommand*{\openquote}
   {\tikz[remember picture,overlay,xshift=-4ex,yshift=-2.5ex]
   \node (OQ) {\quotefont\fontsize{\quotesize}{\quotesize}\selectfont``};\kern0pt}

\newcommand*{\closequote}[1]
  {\tikz[remember picture,overlay,xshift=4ex,yshift={#1}]
   \node (CQ) {\quotefont\fontsize{\quotesize}{\quotesize}\selectfont''};}

% select a colour for the shading
\colorlet{shadecolor}{Azure}

\newcommand*\shadedauthorformat{\emph} % define format for the author argument

% Now a command to allow left, right and centre alignment of the author
\newcommand*\authoralign[1]{%
  \if#1l
    \def\authorfill{}\def\quotefill{\hfill}
  \else
    \if#1r
      \def\authorfill{\hfill}\def\quotefill{}
    \else
      \if#1c
        \gdef\authorfill{\hfill}\def\quotefill{\hfill}
      \else\typeout{Invalid option}
      \fi
    \fi
  \fi}
% wrap everything in its own environment which takes one argument (author) and one optional argument
% specifying the alignment [l, r or c]
%
\newenvironment{shadequote}[2][l]%
{\authoralign{#1}
\ifblank{#2}
   {\def\shadequoteauthor{}\def\yshift{-2ex}\def\quotefill{\hfill}}
   {\def\shadequoteauthor{\par\authorfill\shadedauthorformat{#2}}\def\yshift{2ex}}
\begin{snugshade}\begin{quote}\openquote}
{\shadequoteauthor\quotefill\closequote{\yshift}\end{quote}\end{snugshade}}

\begin{document}

\begin{shadequote}[l]{Douglas Adams}
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
\end{shadequote}

\begin{shadequote}[r]{Douglas Adams}
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
\end{shadequote}

\begin{shadequote}[c]{Douglas Adams}
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
\end{shadequote}

\begin{shadequote}{}
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
\end{shadequote}

\end{document}

In this code, the font for the quotation marks is set independently of the main document font. This is because depending on the main font you choose, the very large quotation marks will not look good; Linux Libertine has pretty quotes that seem appropriate for the purpose. If you want to use this environment with another main document font, remove/change the \usepackage{libertine}.

Sample output

Answer 2

(We just got another question asking for something similar: Quote style like on owni.eu. I wasn't aware of this question when I started to answer that one, but on becoming aware of it decided to post my answer here instead.)

It's also TikZ-based but slightly different to Alan's as the whole thing ends up in a TikZ node. This does mean that it won't work with page-breaking. One could also adapt the quote marks from Alan's version to make them look a bit better.

Here's the result:

And here's the code:

\documentclass{article}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{backgrounds}
\makeatletter

\tikzset{%
  fancy quotes/.style={
    text width=\fq@width pt,
    align=justify,
    inner sep=1em,
    anchor=north west,
    minimum width=\linewidth,
  },
  fancy quotes width/.initial={.8\linewidth},
  fancy quotes marks/.style={
    scale=8,
    text=white,
    inner sep=0pt,
  },
  fancy quotes opening/.style={
    fancy quotes marks,
  },
  fancy quotes closing/.style={
    fancy quotes marks,
  },
  fancy quotes background/.style={
    show background rectangle,
    inner frame xsep=0pt,
    background rectangle/.style={
      fill=gray!25,
      rounded corners,
    },
  }
}

\newenvironment{fancyquotes}[1][]{%
\noindent
\tikzpicture[fancy quotes background]
\node[fancy quotes opening,anchor=north west] (fq@ul) at (0,0) {``};
\tikz@scan@one@point\pgfutil@firstofone(fq@ul.east)
\pgfmathsetmacro{\fq@width}{\linewidth - 2*\pgf@x}
\node[fancy quotes,#1] (fq@txt) at (fq@ul.north west) \bgroup}
{\egroup;
\node[overlay,fancy quotes closing,anchor=east] at (fq@txt.south east) {''};
\endtikzpicture}

\makeatother

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]

\begin{fancyquotes}
\lipsum[1]
\end{fancyquotes}

\lipsum[1]
\end{document}

The lipsum package is just to provide some dummy text.

Answer 3

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{libertine}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[svgnames]{xcolor}
\usepackage{framed}

\newcommand*\openquote{\makebox(25,-22){\scalebox{5}{``}}}
\newcommand*\closequote{\makebox(25,-22){\scalebox{5}{''}}}
\colorlet{shadecolor}{Azure}

\makeatletter
\newif\if@right
\def\shadequote{\@righttrue\shadequote@i}
\def\shadequote@i{\begin{snugshade}\begin{quote}\openquote}
\def\endshadequote{%
  \if@right\hfill\fi\closequote\end{quote}\end{snugshade}}
\@namedef{shadequote*}{\@rightfalse\shadequote@i}
\@namedef{endshadequote*}{\endshadequote}
\makeatother
\begin{document}

\begin{shadequote}
Some quoted words
\end{shadequote}

\begin{shadequote*}
Some quoted words
\end{shadequote*}

\begin{shadequote}
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely
foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.\par\emph{Douglas Adams}
\end{shadequote}

\end{document}

Answer 4

Had I known about this question, I would not have written cfr-dquote. However, I didn't, so I did. Here's a lightly modified version of my package for public consumption or rejection.

The package defines a command, \dquote[<dimension>]{<long text>}{<short text} which is intended to be used so that <dimension> is the width desired, <long text> is the quotation and <short text> is the attribution.

The package is based on TikZ and the appearance can be customised using the usual key-value interface. For example, I've never used this with a coloured background to the quotation, but that is easy to achieve by simply altering quote style.

For example,

\documentclass[a4paper,british]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{geometry,babel,csquotes}
\usepackage{cfr-lm}
\usepackage{cfr-dquote}
\MakeAutoQuote{‘}{’}
\MakeAutoQuote*{“}{”}
\begin{document}
\tikzset{%
  dquote text font=\fontfamily{LobsterTwo-LF}\selectfont\Large\upshape,
  dquote attrib font=\fontfamily{LobsterTwo-LF}\selectfont\Huge\itshape,
  dquote={
    quote style/.style={align=justify, fill=blue!50!cyan, fill opacity=.2, text opacity=1, text=blue!15!darkgray},
    marks={
      size=\Huge,
      scale=4,
      color=blue!50!darkgray,
      opacity=.5,
    },
  },
}%
\dquote{%
  ‘Come, we shall have some fun now!’ thought Alice. ‘I'm glad they've begun asking riddles --- I believe I can guess that,’ she added aloud.

  ‘Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?’ said the March Hare.

  ‘Exactly so,’ said Alice.

  ‘Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on.

  ‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least --- at least I mean what I say --- that's the same thing, you know.’

  ‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!’

  ‘You might just as well say,’ added the March Hare, ‘that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!’

  ‘You might just as well say,’ added the Dormouse, which seemed to be talking in its sleep, ‘that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!’
}{Lewis Carroll}

\end{document}

produces the following output

The package consists of two files, cfr-dquote.sty and cfr-dquote.tex. In theory, the latter can be compiled alone, since it uses the standalone class, but don't be tempted to use it this way - that's just to make tweaks and debugging easier.

Complete code:

\begin{filecontents}{cfr-dquote.sty}
% !TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode
% cfr-dquote.sty
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}% LaTeX 2.09 can't be used (nor non-LaTeX)
[1994/12/01]% LaTeX date must December 1994 or later
\RequirePackage{svn-prov}
\ProvidesPackageSVN{$Id: cfr-dquote.sty 7799 2018-07-20 01:52:15Z cfr $}
\RequirePackage{xcolor,pifont,standalone,xparse,tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc,positioning,backgrounds}
\IfFileExists{tikzlibrarypicfix.code.tex}{\usetikzlibrary{picfix}}{}
\IfFileExists{tikzlibrarycfrexternal.code.tex}{\usetikzlibrary{cfrexternal}}{\usetikzlibrary{external}}
\NewDocumentCommand\dquotetextfonthook{}{\normalfont\large}
\NewDocumentCommand\dquoteattribfonthook{}{\normalfont\normalsize}
\AtBeginDocument{%
  \newlength\cfrdquoteparskip\setlength\cfrdquoteparskip{\parskip}%
  \newlength\cfrdquoteparindent\setlength\cfrdquoteparindent{\parindent}}
% BEGIN defaults
\tikzset{%
  dquote text font/.code={%
    \RenewDocumentCommand\dquotetextfonthook{}{#1}
  },
  dquote attrib font/.code={%
    \RenewDocumentCommand\dquoteattribfonthook{}{#1}
  },
  dquote/.code={%
    \tikzset{%
      /cfr-dquote/.cd,
      #1
    }
  },
  /cfr-dquote/quote style/.style={align=justify, color=blue!50!black},
  /cfr-dquote/quote/.style={/cfr-dquote/quote style, font=\dquotetextfonthook},
  /cfr-dquote/attrib/.style={/cfr-dquote/quote style, font=\dquoteattribfonthook},
  /cfr-dquote/quote mark/.style={color=\cfrdquotecolor, opacity=\cfrdquoteopacity, font=\cfrdquotesize, scale=\cfrdquotescale},
  /cfr-dquote/.cd,
  width/.store in=\cfrdquotewidth,
  text/.store in=\cfrdquotetext,
  attribution/.store in=\cfrdquoteattrib,
  width=120mm,
  text={Does dim o gwbl yn y fan hon!},
  attribution={Neb},
  marks/.code={%
    \tikzset{%
      /cfr-dquote/quote marks/.cd,
      #1
    }
  },
  quote marks/size/.store in=\cfrdquotesize,
  quote marks/scale/.store in=\cfrdquotescale,
  quote marks/color/.store in=\cfrdquotecolor,
  quote marks/opacity/.store in=\cfrdquoteopacity,
  marks={
    size=\Huge,
    scale=4,
    color=blue!50!cyan,
    opacity=.25,
  },
}
% END defaults
% BEGIN defn \dquote
\NewDocumentCommand\dquote { O {120mm} +m m }{%
  \tikzset{%
    external/export next=false,
    /cfr-dquote/.cd,
    width={#1},
    text={\setlength\parskip{\cfrdquoteparskip}\setlength\parindent{\cfrdquoteparindent}#2},
    attribution={#3}
  }%
  \input{cfr-dquote}%
}
% END defn \dquote
\endinput
\end{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{cfr-dquote.tex}
% !TEX TS-program = pdflatex
% !TEX encoding = UTF-8 Unicode
% arara: pdflatex: { synctex: true }
%BEGIN preamble
\csname standaloneignore\endcsname
\pdfminorversion=7
\PassOptionsToPackage{rgb}{xcolor}
\RequirePackage{svn-prov}
\ProvidesFileSVN{$Id: cfr-dquote.tex 7800 2018-07-20 01:58:28Z cfr $}
\documentclass[tikz,12pt]{standalone}
\usetikzlibrary{calc,positioning,backgrounds}
\usepackage{pifont,biblatex}
% END preamble

\begin{document}%
\begin{tikzpicture}[node distance=0pt]
    \node (quotation) [/cfr-dquote/quote, text width=\cfrdquotewidth]  {\cfrdquotetext};
    \node (attrib) [/cfr-dquote/attrib, below=of quotation, text width=\cfrdquotewidth] {\cfrdquoteattrib};
    \node (qlhs) [left=of quotation.north west, /cfr-dquote/quote mark, xshift=.25em, yshift=.25em, anchor=north east] {\ding{123}};
    \node (qrhs) [right=of quotation.south east, /cfr-dquote/quote mark, xshift=-.25em, yshift=-.75em, anchor=south west] {\ding{124}};
    \pgfresetboundingbox
    \useasboundingbox (attrib.south -| qlhs.west) rectangle (quotation.north -| qrhs.east);
\end{tikzpicture}%
\end{document}
\end{filecontents}


\documentclass[a4paper,british]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{geometry,babel,csquotes}
\usepackage{cfr-lm}
\usepackage{cfr-dquote}
\MakeAutoQuote{‘}{’}
\MakeAutoQuote*{“}{”}
\begin{document}
\tikzset{%
  dquote text font=\fontfamily{LobsterTwo-LF}\selectfont\Large\upshape,
  dquote attrib font=\fontfamily{LobsterTwo-LF}\selectfont\Huge\itshape,
  dquote={
    quote style/.style={align=justify, fill=blue!50!cyan, fill opacity=.2, text opacity=1, text=blue!15!darkgray},
    marks={
      size=\Huge,
      scale=4,
      color=blue!50!darkgray,
      opacity=.5,
    },
  },
}%
\dquote{%
  ‘Come, we shall have some fun now!’ thought Alice. ‘I'm glad they've begun asking riddles --- I believe I can guess that,’ she added aloud.

  ‘Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?’ said the March Hare.

  ‘Exactly so,’ said Alice.

  ‘Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on.

  ‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least --- at least I mean what I say --- that's the same thing, you know.’

  ‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!’

  ‘You might just as well say,’ added the March Hare, ‘that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!’

  ‘You might just as well say,’ added the Dormouse, which seemed to be talking in its sleep, ‘that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!’
}{Lewis Carroll}

\end{document}