# Drawing equilateral triangles on the edges of a central triangle

I'm working to produce something that looks like this graphic:

This shows my "hen's scratching" notes from the class I'm in. I've made some progress however, I'm wondering how to tell the tkz-euclide package how to place the calculated point of the equilateral triangle in the "correct" direction. Here is my example code and what it produces.

\documentclass[letterpaper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{tkz-euclide}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{tikzpicture} [scale=0.5]
\coordinate (A) at (0,0);
\coordinate (B) at (3,0);
\coordinate (C) at (3,4);
\draw (A) -- (B) -- (C) -- cycle;
\tkzDefEquilateral(A,C)\tkzGetPoint{D};
\tkzDrawPolygon(A,C,D);
\tkzDefEquilateral(B,C)\tkzGetPoint{E};
\tkzDrawPolygon(B,C,E);
\tkzDefEquilateral(A,B)\tkzGetPoint{F};
\tkzDrawPolygon(A,B,F);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\end{document}


So, as you can see, the equilateral triangles are being produced and anchored where I'd like them. However, two of them don't point in the correct direction. How can I fix that?

BTW: I went down the path of using tkz-euclide because I think using these packages will provide me the correct stepping stones to make the circumcircles, and other paraphernalia that's in this drawing from the class handout. If there's a better option, I'm open to it.

Just swap the order of the vertices in \tkzDefEquilateral, i.e. \tkzDefEquilateral(C,B) instead of \tkzDefEquilateral(B,C).

\documentclass[letterpaper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage{tkz-euclide}
\usetkzobj{all}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}
\centering
\begin{tikzpicture} [scale=0.5]
\coordinate (A) at (0,0);
\coordinate (B) at (3,0);
\coordinate (C) at (3,4);
\draw (A) -- (B) -- (C) -- cycle;
\tkzDefEquilateral(A,C)\tkzGetPoint{D};
\tkzDrawPolygon(A,C,D);
\tkzDefEquilateral(C,B)\tkzGetPoint{E};
\tkzDrawPolygon(B,C,E);
\tkzDefEquilateral(B,A)\tkzGetPoint{F};
\tkzDrawPolygon(A,B,F);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

• Thanks. By the way, is there a good, English, manual for tkz-euclide? I googled a bit last night before posting but everything I found said it is written in French. – Andrew Falanga Nov 30 '16 at 15:57
• @AndrewFalanga I'm only aware of the French one. – Torbjørn T. Nov 30 '16 at 16:00