Display rulers for coordinate information

Question

How can we display rulers on the top and the side of a TikZ image? When creating a TikZ image, we need to place items (nodes, lines, etc.) at specific positions. It would be easier if we see the coordinates of any potential point by means of rulers (or is there a better way?) How can we place rulers in the TikZ image (they would be just for the time of development of the image)

One option is to use a grid (numbers should be added separately): \draw (0,0) grid (4,3); for example. — Sigur, Jan 05 '24 at 12:50
Maybe have a look at https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/560883/36296 — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Jan 05 '24 at 12:53
To add numbers to the grid \foreach\x in {0, ..., 4}\node[below]at(\x,0){\x};\foreach\y in {0, ..., 3}\node[left]at(0,\y){\y}; — Skillmon, Jan 05 '24 at 13:51

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 05 '24 at 22:19

1

TikZ has the help lines style for this purpose.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\drawhelp lines grid (5,2);
\draw (-.5,-.7) -- (4.3, 1.6);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

answered Jan 05 '24 at 22:19

Sandy G

42,558

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 05 '24 at 23:20

Something like this?

Code:

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{book}
\usepackage{tikz}
%\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
    \begin{tikzpicture}
        \draw[step=1cm,line width=1pt] (0,0) grid (11,12);
        \foreach \i in {1,2,...,11}
            \foreach \j in {1,2,...,12}
                \node at (\i-.5,\j-.5) () { \i,\j};
    \node at (5,5) {\includegraphics[width=6cm]{example-image-duck}};
    \end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

You can comment or delete the code for the grid after your work is finished.

Display rulers for coordinate information

2 Answers2