Drawing braid diagrams in Latex, t-angles.sty package

I found this extremely cool package "t-angles.sty" (manual found here)

which seems to fit perfectly to what I was looking for. Unfortunately I can't figure out what's the problem in my code. I want to "draw" the following diagram (where the Bs and Hs are not necessary for me):

My code in a minimal example looks like this:

\documentclass[twoside,12pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[emtex]{t-angles}

\begin{document}
$\m \;=\enspace \begin{tangles}{lccr} \HH \id & \cd & \id & \id \\ %(1) \HH \id & \id & \x & \id \\ %(2) \HH \id & \hlu & \id \id \\ \HH \Cu && \cu \end{tangles}$

\end{document}


Unfortunately I get the following output: Anyone here who can help me? It would help a lot to understand this package. As I said, it seems to be exactly what I need!

• Welcome! No idea about the package and I did not compile. But your lcr looks as if you do define 3 columns but you clearly fill up 4 columns. lcr is most probably left centered right. So start trying to add one of those more. – LaRiFaRi Dec 6 '18 at 12:30
• Regarding the &: You should read a bit about matrices and tables in LaTeX. Those are separators between columns. So && does just show an empty column. & & would yield the same. Generally talking, but I bet it is the same for this package here. – LaRiFaRi Dec 6 '18 at 12:32
• @LaRiFaRi Thanks for the first hint, now its not an error anymore, the diagram just doesn't look at all like I wanted. I'll update the question! :D – Polly Dec 6 '18 at 12:33
• Glad that helped a bit. The manual (pirbot.com/mirrors/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/t-angles/…) has only 7 pages and some examples. Maybe you start by doing those tutorials first. – LaRiFaRi Dec 6 '18 at 12:50
• Yes I tried that, and I thought I had understood the examples quite well. My code ist build upon the first example... but thanks for helping :) – Polly Dec 6 '18 at 13:23

With some small improvements the output can be made close to the image. The \hlu command has an optional argument to set the width (e.g., \hlu[2]). Note that the third and fourth line have only two & symbols instead of three. Because the \Cu command is too big, the \cu command can be used. This leads to the following output:

Now, the \cu is too small. It appears that the package does not provide any customization for \cu or \Cu, so a new command should be made for that. For \Cu the source of the package contains the following definition:

\hbx(4,2){\pr@d{20,20,40,20}{b}{20,0,0,10}}


Using this definition it is possible to create a new command with changed numbers that result in a smaller output.

MWE:

\documentclass[twoside,12pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[emtex]{t-angles}

\makeatletter
\def\mycu{%
% \hbx{width,height} \pr@d{left offset,bottom offset,width,height}{oval part}{line left,top,?,length}
\hbx(1,1){\pr@d{10,10,20,10}{b}{10,0,0,5}}%
}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
$m \;=\enspace \begin{tangles}{llrr} \HH \id & \cd & \id & \id \\ %(1) \HH \id & \id & \x & \id \\ %(2) \HH \id & \hlu[2] & \id & \id \\ \HH \mycu & & & \cu \end{tangles}$
\end{document}


Result: