Summary of Tikz commands

Question

Many times, when I'm coding a tikz-picture, I don't remember the command syntax or the name of one option, and I have to look in pgf-manual is not very short. Does anybody has a summary of Tikz commands fit to one or two pages?

Answer 1

Command Templates

• Basic path:

  \drawing-command [options] path-specification;

• Path specification:

  (coordinate) path-component (coordinate);

• Path Reusage

  postaction={<basic drawing commands> or <decorate>} When this option is given to any basic drawing commands below, the path is not immediately discarded and reused after the initial drawing command is finished.

  preaction={<basic drawing commands> or <decorate>} When this option is given to any basic drawing commands below, the path is used once before the initial drawing command is executed.

Basic Drawing Commands:

• \path: constructs a path

All following commands are in fact short forms for \path with one option or two:

• \draw: constructs and draws ("strokes") a path
• \fill: constructs and fills a path
• \filldraw: constructs, fills, and draws a path (in that order)
• \shade: constructs and shades a path
• \shadedraw: constructs, shades, and draws a path (in that order)
• \coordinate: label a coordinate
• \node[<options>] at (<coordinate>) (<name>) {<text>}: constructs a node
• \path (nodeName1) edge [options->] (nodeName2);: an edge

Coordinate Specifications:

• (<x>,<y>): specifies the coordinate as a multiple of the current x- and y-vector (default: 1cm right and 1cm upwards)
• (<θ>:<r>) specifies a coordinate in polar form with r being the vector length and θ being the angle in degrees
• +<coordinate specification>: specifies a coordinate relative to the previous position but does not save the current position
• ++<coordinate specification>: specifies a coordinate relative to the previous position

Notes

1. Lengths can be with or without unit. If with a unit they are taken literally, if without they are multiples of the current x or y vector (as appropriate).

2. Relative coordinates are with respect to the last saved position. Unless specified otherwise, the above all save their resultant position as the last saved position.

3. When a relative coordinate is used in a bezier curve specification the behaviour is slightly different. The second control point is taken relative to the final position of the curve, and the final point is taken relative to the initial one (or last saved position).

Path Specifications:

• (coordinate) (coordinate): moves the "current point" from the first coordinate to the second
• (coordinate) -- (coordinate): draws a line from the first coordinate to the second
• (coordinate) .. controls (control) and (control) .. (coordinate): draws a cubic bezier from the first coordinate to the second with the specified control points
• (coordinate) to[options] (coordinate): draws a to path from the first coordinate to the second; to paths can be extremely complicated
• (coordinate) rectangle (coordinate): draws a rectangle with the coordinates as opposite corners
• (coordinate) circle[options]: draws a circle centred at the coordinate
• (coordinate) arc[options]: draws an arc starting at the coordinate
• (coordinate) node[options] {text}: adds a node at the coordinate
• (coordinate) coordinate: adds a coordinate label at the given coordinate

Basic Options

• draw[=<colour specification>]¹: draw the current path (with the given colour)
• fill[=<colour specification>]¹: fill the current path (with the given colour)
• <colour specification>: set the colour for draw, fill, text (without explicitly enforcing those actions)
• line width=<dimen>: sets the line width
• thin, thick, ultra thick etc: presets for the line width

---

¹ The brackets indicate an optional part and must not be type in the code. I.e. use draw=red and not draw[=red].

Answer 2

The lazy mathematician in me decided to come up with another approach. I ran the following script on the documentation:

(for f in  pgfmanual-en-tikz-{design,scopes,coordinates,paths,actions,shapes,graphs,matrices,trees,plots,transparency,decorations,transformations}.tex; do
cat $f
done) | perl -ne '
if (/(\\(begin|end)\{(coordinatesystem|keylist|package|predefinednode|command|key|stylekey|pathoperation)\})|\\(sub)*section|\\catcode/) {
print;
$c = ($_ =~ tr/{/{/);
$c -= ($_ =~ tr/}/}/);
} else {
if ($c > 0) {
print;
$c += ($_ =~ tr/{/{/);
$c -= ($_ =~ tr/}/}/);
};
};
' | xclip

Then pasted the result into the following template:

\documentclass[a4paper]{ltxdoc}
\usepackage[scale=.9]{geometry}

\usepackage{tikz}

% The location of this will depend on where you put the sources of the pgfmanual
\input{../../../local/share/pgf/doc/generic/pgf/macros/pgfmanual-en-macros}

\begin{document}

%%%% <--- pasted text goes here

\end{document}

Then removed some stuff that had been included by accident (search for codeexample and remove all such environments - they get included due to the \catcode switches.), and added a missing closing brace.

When I originally ran this in 2012, it produced a 21-page document listing all (as far as I can tell) of the commands and keys in the TikZ segment of the manual. I've re-run the process in 2022 and it is now a 27-page document.

• 2012 version: https://docs.mathforge.org/tikzcheatsheet-2012.pdf
• 2022 version, PGF version 3.1.8: https://docs.mathforge.org/tikzcheatsheet-2022.pdf

Answer 3

VisualTikZ was recently uploaded to CTAN. It consists in more than 150 pages full of examples for TikZ commands and options. For every command or option a little figure is shown. Just as example, here you have some pages: