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After mentioning TikZ in academia, I tried to have a look here for recommended editors for TikZ. I found no list, and thus here's the question:

What TikZ editors/front-ends do you know? What can you recommend?

I guess that what I have in mind is a tool where the image can be edited using an interface similar to inkscape, and then it will generate a code snippet in TikZ. For example I know of geogebra, but I'm interested in a big list.

I am aware of the list available here, as pointed by one of the answers to this question, but I'm interested in some evaluation of each based on personal experience.

I suggest that each tool should has its own answer, this way this will become sort of a poll as well. Probably, each answer should contain at least: pros/cons/platform...

Community
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Dror
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6 Answers6

21

TikzEdt

This is a wonderful editor for TikZ graphics. It has a live preview, several code snippets and examples and parses the TikZ elements to some degree so that for example nodes can be marked in the live preview. Additionally this parsing allows the direct manipulation of some elements, you can drag nodes around in the preview window and the code is updated accordingly.

While the current version 0.2.1 is still a bit rough here and there it works nicely on Windows with a preliminary Linux version.

http://www.tikzedt.org/

Tikzedt

Alexander
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  • Recently I got the error "Checking for new version failed: Errore del server remoto: (404) Non trovato." that means "remote server non found". I have TikzEdt version 0.2.3.0 with Windows 10. Is it a problem of TikzEdt site or mine? Until few weeks ago all worked well. – CarLaTeX May 28 '16 at 12:45
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    This app was last updated in 2013... is there still development support behind this? – RTbecard Jul 05 '18 at 20:23
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    Waiting for a working linux version (currently it doesn't work for me in ubuntu; i hope i only face this issue) – Cyriac Antony Feb 06 '19 at 11:48
  • The download link on the site does not work anymore – klirk Jan 14 '21 at 17:00
10

GeoGebra offers TikZ export (File -> Export -> Graphics View as PGF/TikZ).

Advantages:

  1. WYSIWIG editor, you don't need to remember TikZ commands and syntax.
  2. GeoGebra is a powerful tool for drawing 2D diagrams and hence it migh make you faster than when editing plain TikZ.

Disadvantages

  1. You need an external program.
  2. The export has slight problems with labels sometimes (they get shifted a bit). But this can be easily manually fixed in the exported TikZ code.
  3. It can be slow on ARM* machines i.e. Raspberry machines, due to source code environment.
user98734
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Augustin
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    There is an Online version of GeoGebra so this is an amazing advantage by itself. – Royi Jun 08 '17 at 20:40
  • Some more disadvantages 4. Limited support for reuse: This will disappear if geogebra's export become smarter. eg: export dependent objects as they are.
    5. Lack of support for styles: I am afraid this will be more permanent. But one can edit the exported tikz script; this would still save time     – Cyriac Antony Feb 06 '19 at 11:46
8

Inkscape allows you to edit the image using an interface remarkably similar to Inkscape's, It can then generate TiKZ code.

Advantages: interface really is very like that of Inkscape.

Disadvantages: tends to produce unwieldy code which is not at all readable and may be difficult to modify.

Disclaimer: I've used Inkscape and I've used TiKZ but, while I have generated TiKZ code using Inkscape, I wouldn't recommend it in general.

cfr
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    I tried to do so. It's very easy but, as you mentioned, it's far from being clean and understandable code. I'd say it's a last resource if one wants to have a nice looking TikZ image, but hasn't the time to create it by themselves in TikZ. – gbernardi Apr 13 '16 at 09:05
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    @gbernardi But you must admit, it satisfies the interface-like-Inkscape requirement to perfection! – cfr Apr 13 '16 at 17:35
  • Yes, I do. I was not trying to diminish the value of such great addon. Just pointing out something I noticed that could mainly be detrimental for the compilation time of the generated TikZ pictures ;)

    As a matter of fact, I should have added that I tested it for some toy examples that were rather intricated: I vectorized a raster icon I liked (which had quite an irregular outline) in Inkscape, and converted it to TikZ.

     – gbernardi Apr 14 '16 at 08:06
  • I'm not disagreeing with you, you know. I was only joking. – cfr Apr 14 '16 at 15:02
  • I'm confused ... Inkscape has an interface remarkably similar to Inkscape's? Did you mean to use a different name for the first instance? – 0xC0000022L Oct 04 '21 at 19:02
6

There is another editor which does live preview: QTikZ (QT version of KTikZ)

Stefan Kottwitz
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Dohn Joe
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5

KTikZ is a front-end based on KDE4. It is the KDE version of the generic QT4 front-end mentioned in Dohn Joe's answer.

cfr
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0

cirkuit is a front-end for TikZ, GNUplot and Circuit Macros (whatever they are). I assume from the package name in the AUR that this is based on QT5 and intended for use in Plasma.

cfr
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