# Timeline in LaTeX - Concrete example

Can someone help me in drawing this in LaTeX?

It should be really easy with tikz package, but I am really failing to get the result I want.

This is what I tried:

\begin{tikzpicture}
%draw horizontal line
\draw (0,0) -- (4,0);
\begin{tikzpicture}[snake=zigzag, line before snake = 5mm, line after snake = 5mm]

%draw vertical lines
\foreach \x in {0,2,5,7}
\draw (\x cm,3pt) -- (\x cm,-3pt);

%draw nodes
\draw (0,0) node[below=3pt] {$0$} node[above=3pt] {};
\draw (2,0) node[below=3pt] {$1$} node[above=3pt] {$CPN$};
\draw (5,0) node[below=3pt] {$2$} node[above=3pt] {$CPN$};
\draw (7,0) node[below=3pt] {$n$} node[above=3pt] {$CPN + M$};
\end{tikzpicture}

• Hey this is what I have so far, I copied the structure from an old answer (stackoverflow.com/questions/217834/…) of this website. – Carmine Ragone Nov 17 '17 at 17:46
• Please can you make your example compile? You seem to be nesting tikzpictures. That's not supported and is expected not to work as expected. – cfr Nov 18 '17 at 1:50

With decoration you can choose the style (zigzag), how long should be the line before the decoration (pre length) and after it (post length) and also its amplitude:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\newcommand{\CPN}{\mathit{CPN}}
%\newcommand{\CPN}{\text{CPN}} %possible alternative
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathmorphing, arrows.meta, positioning, matrix}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
%draw horizontal line
\draw[decorate,
decoration={zigzag,
pre length=5.5cm,
post length=1cm,
amplitude=2.5mm
}
]
(0,0) -- (7,0);

%draw vertical lines
\foreach \x in {0,2,5,7}
\draw (\x cm,3pt) -- (\x cm,-3pt);

%draw nodes
\draw (0,0) node[below=3pt] {$0$} node[above=3pt] {};
\draw (2,0) node[below=3pt] {$1$} node[above=3pt] {$\CPN$};
\draw (5,0) node[below=3pt] {$2$} node[above=3pt] {$\CPN$};
\draw (7,0) node[below=3pt] {$n$} node[above=3pt] {$\CPN + M$};

\matrix[matrix of math nodes,
anchor=north east,
inner sep=0pt,
nodes={text width=6em, align=center, inner sep=4pt}
] (m) at (0,-.5) {
\dfrac{\CPN_{1}}{(i+i)^{1}} \\
\dfrac{\CPN_{2}}{(i+i)^{2}} \\
\dots\\
\dfrac{\CPN_{n}+M}{(i+i)^{n}} \\
};

% draw gray arrows
\foreach \mypos/\mylen in {1/2,2/5,4/7}
\draw[Stealth-, gray, very thick] (m-\mypos-1.east) -- +(\mylen,0);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}