2

I would like to add gradient color for lines of words and long ones are just causing trouble.

Here is the code

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\usetikzlibrary{fadings}
\newcommand\fadingtext[3][]{%
  \begin{tikzfadingfrompicture}[name=fading letter]
    \node[text=transparent!0,inner xsep=0pt,outer xsep=0pt,#1] {#3};
  \end{tikzfadingfrompicture}%
  \begin{tikzpicture}[baseline=(textnode.base)]
    \node[inner sep=0pt,outer sep=0pt,#1](textnode){\phantom{#3}};
    \shade[path fading=fading letter,#2,fit fading=false]
    (textnode.south west) rectangle (textnode.north east);%
  \end{tikzpicture}%
}

\begin{document}

\pagestyle{plain}

\noindent
\fadingtext{left color=YellowOrange, right color = Cyan}{In physics, relativistic angular momentum refers to the mathematical formalisms and physical concepts that define angular momentum in special relativity (SR) and general relativity (GR). The relativistic quantity is subtly different from the three-dimensional quantity in classical mechanics.}

\

\noindent
\fadingtext{left color=YellowOrange, right color = Cyan}{In physics, relativistic angular momentum refers to the mathematical formalisms and} \fadingtext{left color=Green, right color = RawSienna}{physical concepts that define}

\

\noindent
In physics, relativistic angular momentum refers to the mathematical formalisms and physical concepts that define angular momentum in special relativity (SR) and general relativity (GR). The relativistic quantity is subtly different from the three-dimensional quantity in classical mechanics.

\end{document}

And apparently the line breaking is not working here

Line Break Not Working

We can see that the colored text is going beyond the range of the margin.

Thanks in advance for anyone who helps.

While using

\parbox{\textwidth}

in the text really helps. But for text with different color gradient in same line, there would be trouble

\noindent
\fadingtext{left color=YellowOrange, right color = Cyan}{\parbox{\textwidth}{In physics,}} \fadingtext{left color=Black, right color = Red}{\parbox{\textwidth}{relativistic angular momentum refers}}

The output looks like

Different Color Gradient in Same Line

Improve this question
2
  • \phantom{#3} reserves space for one long line of text, even if you include [text width=\textwidth]. You can however use a \parbox{\textwidth}{...} for #3.
    – John Kormylo
    May 6, 2016 at 1:28
  • I tried and the text start overlapping each other. I have updated the picture in the question.
    – zyy
    May 7, 2016 at 20:09

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
3

What I meant was to put a \parbox into #3:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\usetikzlibrary{fadings}
\newcommand\fadingtext[3][]{%
  \begin{tikzfadingfrompicture}[name=fading letter]
    \node[text=transparent!0,inner xsep=0pt,outer xsep=0pt,#1] {#3};
  \end{tikzfadingfrompicture}%
  \begin{tikzpicture}[baseline=(textnode.base)]
    \node[inner sep=0pt,outer sep=0pt,#1](textnode){\phantom{#3}};
    \shade[path fading=fading letter,#2,fit fading=false]
    (textnode.south west) rectangle (textnode.north east);%
  \end{tikzpicture}%
}

\begin{document}

\pagestyle{plain}

\noindent
\fadingtext{left color=YellowOrange, right color = Cyan}{\parbox{\textwidth}{%
In physics, relativistic angular momentum refers to the mathematical formalisms and physical concepts that define angular momentum in special relativity (SR) and general relativity (GR). The relativistic quantity is subtly different from the three-dimensional quantity in classical mechanics.}}

\

\noindent
\fadingtext{left color=YellowOrange, right color = Cyan}{In physics, relativistic angular momentum refers to the mathematical formalisms and} \fadingtext{left color=Green, right color = RawSienna}{physical concepts that define}

\

\noindent
In physics, relativistic angular momentum refers to the mathematical formalisms and physical concepts that define angular momentum in special relativity (SR) and general relativity (GR). The relativistic quantity is subtly different from the three-dimensional quantity in classical mechanics.

\end{document}

demo

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4
  • Yeah, it really works and thank you very much. But if I would like to use different color gradient for text in same line \noindent \fadingtext{left color=YellowOrange, right color = Cyan}{\parbox{\textwidth}{In physics,}} \fadingtext{left color=Black, right color = Red}{\parbox{\textwidth}{relativistic angular momentum refers}} would cause trouble and I have updated in the question.
    – zyy
    May 10, 2016 at 0:42
  • 1
    First, you can break text into lines using a \savebox and \vsplit. Then you can apply a different fading to each box and stack the resulting nodes vertically. See tex.stackexchange.com/questions/295039/… on the use of \vsplit.
    – John Kormylo
    May 10, 2016 at 2:03
  • I added \noindent to keep the text aligned and thank you so much for helping out!
    – zyy
    May 14, 2016 at 17:20
  • This suggestion works well in PDFLaTeX, XeLaTeX, but not works in dvips->ps2pdf, any advise?
    – MadyYuvi
    Mar 17, 2021 at 14:21
3

This is not a tikz solution, but a different approach. It is based on my answers at Make fireworks with only text and How can I 'fade out' text after a certain length?. It can successfully wrap lines.

EDITED for sloppypar and now uses \colorlet instead of \def, which allows mixed colors to be specified as \FadeColors arguments. After specifying colors as \FadeColors{<start-color>}{<end-color>}, one uses the syntax \FadeAfter{<length>}{content}. The fadeout is done as a function of the current text length, as opposed to being applied en masse to a rectangular text box.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor,ifthen}
\newcounter{tmpcounter}
\newlength\cumlength
\newlength\critlength
\newlength\tmplength
\newcount\mynum
\newcount\myden
\makeatletter
\newcommand\FadeColors[2]{%
    \colorlet{innercolor}{#1}%
    \colorlet{outercolor}{#2}%
}

\newcommand\FadeAfter[2]{%
  \critlength=#1\relax\cumlength=0pt\relax%
  \def\cumstring{}\fahelp{#2}}
\newcommand\fahelp[1]{\prefahelper#1 \relax\fahelper#1\relax}
\def\prefahelper#1#2 #3\relax{\gdef\wordremaining{#1#2}}
\def\fahelper#1#2\relax{%
  \global\protected@edef\cumstring{\cumstring#1}%
  \ifthenelse{\equal{#1}{\wordremaining}}{%
    \global\protected@edef\cumstring{\cumstring\ }}{}%
  \setbox0=\hbox{\cumstring}%
  \tmplength=.01\critlength\relax%
  \mynum=\wd0\relax%
  \myden=\tmplength\relax%
  \divide\mynum by\myden%
  \setcounter{tmpcounter}{\numexpr100-\the\mynum}%
  \ifnum\thetmpcounter<0\setcounter{tmpcounter}{0}\fi%
  \textcolor{innercolor!\thetmpcounter!outercolor}{#1}%
  \ifthenelse{\equal{#1}{\wordremaining}}{\ }{}%
    \ifx\relax#2\relax\else\fahelp{#2}\fi%
}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\FadeColors{black}{white}
\FadeAfter{\dimexpr\textwidth+1in}{This is a very long multi-line test.
This is a very long test. This is a very long test.
This is a very long test. }\par
\FadeColors{red}{blue!70!cyan!50}
\FadeAfter{2in}{This is a test. This is a test.
This is a test.}\par
\FadeColors{yellow!50!orange}{cyan}
\begin{sloppypar}
\FadeAfter{4\textwidth}{In physics, relativistic angular momentum refers to 
the mathematical formalisms and physical concepts that define angular 
momentum in special relativity (SR) and general relativity (GR). The 
relativistic quantity is subtly different from the three-dimensional 
quantity in classical mechanics.}
\end{sloppypar}
\end{document}

enter image description here

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5
  • that works great - thanks for sharing!
    – lAtExFaN
    Aug 2, 2020 at 11:53
  • Your suggestion works superb... but not able to increase the fontsize for a particular text, Please advise...
    – MadyYuvi
    Mar 17, 2021 at 9:23
  • 1
    @MadyYuvi This redefinition, \def\fahelper#1#2\relax{\ifcat\relax#1#1\fahelp{#2}\else [rest of original definition here]\fi} will allow macros that don't take arguments into the input stream, such as \Large, etc. The [rest of original definition here] was too long to include in a comment, but I hope you can assemble it.
    – Steven B. Segletes
    Mar 17, 2021 at 10:40
  • Its working like a champ... Just a small request, inside the definition \usepackage{soul}\sodef\rhtrack{}{1.5\p@}{4\p@}{0pt} is not working, can you advise please?
    – MadyYuvi
    Mar 17, 2021 at 12:58
  • 1
    @MadyYuvi I am sorry that I do not have experience with soul to advise. However, as I noted, my fix will only allow macros without arguments. You could do \def\tmp{\macro{arg1}{arg2}{arg3}} and then pass \tmp in the string to \fahelper. Possibly also pass it in braces, as in {\macro{arg1}{arg2}{arg3}}
    – Steven B. Segletes
    Mar 17, 2021 at 13:33

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