[OS X TeX] diagonal arrows in figures

[Ross Moore]

Hi Philipp,

On 21/04/2005, at 9:58 AM, Philipp Mathey wrote:

> Hi-
> thanks for the tip. I should have known about pb-diagram.
>
> Seems indeed to be faster than xy-pic (and the arrow-tips are prettier 
> !) . Also, the syntax seems to be as intuitive as that of 
> \xymatrix{..}.

Sure.
There are also CD capabilities in the  amscd  package,
having similar syntax, of course.


But the problem with these solutions are that you are
greatly restricted in the range of angles that can be used,
and in their (lack of) ability to nicely position labels
over arrows --- especially ones going diagonally.


These are exactly the reasons why Xy-pic was written,
so as to get greater flexibilty, resulting in much
higher quality in the resulting appearance.


For a comparison of the available packages,
(at least as they were in 1992) see:

http://www.tug.org/TUGboat/Articles/tb15-4/tb45vali.pdf


Be aware though that in some of the author's comparisons,
he has not used all the available features of Xy-pic,
resulting in some defects.

Doubtless the same comment applies to other packages
as well.

For example, the middle figure of §9.6  has the label 'f'
misplaced, because the author failed to type 1 character.
In the 3rd figure, he could have made it wider to
properly accommodate the extra-wide label.

In §7.6 the author seems to have left out the
inclusion base-tips on some of the arrows.
Even with this defect the Xy-pic version has a
clearly better layout than any of the others
--- though §7.9 comes close, and §7.10 is OK except
that the labels are too close on vertical arrows.



I hope this explicit comparison helps you --- and others
--- to find the package that best suits your needs.


Cheers,

	Ross



------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross Moore                                         ross at maths.mq.edu.au
Mathematics Department                             office: E7A-419
Macquarie University                               tel: +61 +2 9850 8955
Sydney, Australia                                  fax: +61 +2 9850 8114
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