Is there is a package so you can add text with visual effects like "WordArt" from "Word"

Question

I am elaborating a business card style for LaTeX but I found out that even if I have the style and margin for the cards I can not make it look "pretty" like other text editors without overusing text-images insertions, and this become tedious over time and more if you need to overlap an image to another one, because the background of the image needs to be transparent and it needs to be edited for that.

So like the title says, is there a package so you can add effects to sentences (like 3D, shadows, background-fade, fade, etc.)? Or does someone know some effects to make text "pretty"?

Answer 1

Using pstricks, we can do the following:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pst-all}
\usepackage{pst-light3d}
%http://mirrors.ucr.ac.cr/CTAN/graphics/pstricks/contrib/pst-light3d/pst-light3d-doc.pdf

\begin{document}

\begin{pspicture}(0,-1)(8,2)
\DeclareFixedFont{\bigsf}{T1}{phv}{b}{n}{1.5cm}
\pscharpath[linecolor=yellow,%
fillstyle=gradient,%
gradbegin=yellow,%
gradend=red,%
gradmidpoint=1,%
gradangle=5]%
{\bigsf PSTricks}
\end{pspicture}

\begin{pspicture}(0,-1)(8,2)
\DeclareFixedFont{\nbigsf}{T1}{phv}{b}{n}{1.3cm}
\psset{fillstyle=gradient,gradbegin=red,gradend=blue}
\pscharpath[gradangle=90]{\nbigsf PSTricks}
\pscharpath[gradangle=90,linestyle=none]{\nbigsf PSTricks}
\end{pspicture}

\begin{pspicture}(0,-1)(8,2)
\DeclareFixedFont{\Rmb}{T1}{ptm}{m}{n}{3cm}
\PstLightThreeDText[fillstyle=solid,fillcolor=yellow!100!red!70,
LightThreeDAngle=60,LightThreeDYLength=0.1]{\Rmb PSTricks}
\end{pspicture}

\end{document}

Answer 2

As you can see, there are indeed ways to make text "pretty" using TeX and friends but they are definitely not easy. (This is actually one of the reasons why my WordArt-loving colleagues find it hard to switch to LaTeX. I, however, no longer use them due to my own opinions about WordArt:) As mentioned in the comments above, you can use graphical packages like tikz and pstricks.

A very nice pstricks example has already been provided by azetina but if you want to broaden your horizon, here are some posts in tex.stack that might help you.

• Drop shadow for text in PGF/Beamer
• Outlining (filling) glyph outline with text in TikZ
• Convert font letters to vector format and fill with a pattern
• Letterpress effect through PSTricks or Tikz
• External link: Example: TikZ and PGF version 2.00

And here are some modified examples from the pgf manual.

Code

%https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/85863/is-there-is-a-package-so-you-can-add-text-with-visual-effects-like-wordart-fro
\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{fadings,decorations.text}

\begin{document}
% First figure
\noindent
\begin{tikzfadingfrompicture}[name=tikz]
\node [text=transparent!20]
{\fontfamily{ptm}\fontsize{45}{45}\bfseries\selectfont Ti\emph{k}Z};
\end{tikzfadingfrompicture}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\shade[path fading=tikz,fit fading=false,
left color=blue,right color=black]
(-2,-1) rectangle (2,1);
\end{tikzpicture}

% Second figure
\begin{tikzpicture}
\path [decorate, decoration={text along path,text format delimiters={[}{]},text align=fit to path,
text={A big [\color{red}]red[] and [\color{green}]green[] apple.}}]
(0,0) .. controls (0,2) and (3,2) .. (3,0);
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Output

Here is my attempt at creating a WordArt-like command. You can tweak it so that you can also control the xshift and yshift.

\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{fadings,decorations.text}
\newcommand{\winarty}[5]{
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw [xshift=2.5pt,yshift=-2pt,decorate, decoration={text along path,text format delimiters={[}{]},text align=fit to path,
text={[\fontsize{45}{45}\bfseries\color{#4}\selectfont]#5[]}},]
(#1,0) .. controls (#1,0.75) and (#2,-0.75) .. (#2,0.5);

\path [decorate, decoration={text along path,text format delimiters={[}{]},text align=fit to path,
text={[\fontsize{45}{45}\bfseries\color{#3}\selectfont]#5[]}},]
(#1,0) .. controls (#1,0.75) and (#2,-0.75) .. (#2,0.5);
\end{tikzpicture}
}
\begin{document}

\def\Exampletext{This is an example text.}
\winarty{1}{12}{blue!75!black}{gray}{\Exampletext}
\end{document}

Here is the output.

Answer 3

I was not able to compile the MWE provided by Azetina, so tried some suggestions of Overleaf Templates, and answers to questions related to the terms in the comments to Azetina's answer. The following file named: main.tex can be compiled with:

pdflatex --shell-escape main.tex

And in Overleaf it can be compiled using the latex compiler (not pdflatex). The example is not minimal, but it works:

\def\jobname{main} % or whatever your main document .tex file is named!
\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\title{Using PSTricks with pdflatex on Overleaf}
\author{Overleaf}

\usepackage{pst-all}
\usepackage{pst-light3d}
%http://mirrors.ucr.ac.cr/CTAN/graphics/pstricks/contrib/pst-light3d/pst-light3d-doc.pdf


\usepackage{pst-node}
\usepackage{pst-coil}
\usepackage{auto-pst-pdf}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\pagestyle{empty}


\begin{document}

\begin{pspicture}(0,-1)(8,2)
\DeclareFixedFont{\bigsf}{T1}{phv}{b}{n}{1.5cm}
\pscharpath[linecolor=yellow,%
fillstyle=gradient,%
gradbegin=yellow,%
gradend=red,%
gradmidpoint=1,%
gradangle=5]%
{\bigsf PSTricks}
\end{pspicture}

\begin{pspicture}(0,-1)(8,2)
\DeclareFixedFont{\nbigsf}{T1}{phv}{b}{n}{1.3cm}
\psset{fillstyle=gradient,gradbegin=red,gradend=blue}
\pscharpath[gradangle=90]{\nbigsf PSTricks}
\pscharpath[gradangle=90,linestyle=none]{\nbigsf PSTricks}
\end{pspicture}

\begin{pspicture}(0,-1)(8,2)
\DeclareFixedFont{\Rmb}{T1}{ptm}    {m}{n}{3cm}
\PstLightThreeDText[fillstyle=solid,fillcolor=yellow!100!red!70,
LightThreeDAngle=60,LightThreeDYLength=0.1]{\Rmb PSTricks}
\end{pspicture}

\end{document}

Output:

Note

If you change the filename from main.tex to something.tex, you should change the first line of the file from:

\def\jobname{main} % or whatever your main document .tex file is named!

to:

\def\jobname{something} % or whatever your main document .tex file is named!