It all started with a question on TeX.SX: Namely, is there any quick way to draw diagrams from a list of items, similar to the ‘Smart Art’ feature in PowerPoint 2010?
It wasn’t long before the package smartdiagram was born as a response, using TikZ to do the actual drawings. The basic syntax is:
\usepackage{smartdiagram} \smartdiagram[diagram type]{list of comma-separated items} |
Here are some examples (based on material from here):
\smartdiagram[circular diagram]{Assess,Plan,Implement,Renew} |
![](https://texmy.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/1b0a2-sd-circular.png)
\smartdiagram[flow diagram]{Assess,Plan,Implement,Renew} |
![](https://texmy.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/6d3e4-sd-flow.png)
\smartdiagram[buggle diagram]{Planning Cycle,Assess,Plan,Implement,Renew} |
![](https://texmy.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/025ac-sd-bubble.png)
If you happen to be preparing a Beamer presentation, replacing the \smartdiagram
command with \smartdiagramanimated
will result in an automatically ‘animated’ diagram, with each item in the list appearing one at a time as you advance through the slides:
![](https://texmy.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/3dbae-sd-circular.gif)
![](https://texmy.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/4261d-sd-flow.gif)
![](https://texmy.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/3a709-sd-bubble.gif)
See the manual for other digram types and customisation options (colours, shapes, sizes, etc).
Nice!
+1
Most of time I only use 'Graphviz' (dot) tools. 🙂