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How can I create a blurred Chapter title such as this?

enter image description here

Gonzalo Medina
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wererabit
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1 Answers1

9

One possibility; the idea is to use several copies of the string with different opacity and offsets (basically, a modification of the idea used in the answer to Blur the text so it's not readable).

First, a TikZ-free solution with the text and four offset copies:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{titlesec}
\usepackage{lmodern}

\titleformat{\chapter}[display]
  {\normalfont\fontsize{37}{48}\sffamily\filleft}
  {{\color{gray!15}\chaptertitlename~\thechapter}\hspace*{3.5pt}%
    \llap{\color{gray!15}\chaptertitlename~\thechapter}\hspace*{-1.75pt}%
    \llap{\color{gray!15}%
      \raisebox{1.75pt}[0pt][0pt]{\chaptertitlename~\thechapter}}%
    \llap{\color{gray!15}%
      \raisebox{-1.75pt}[0pt][0pt]{\chaptertitlename~\thechapter}}%
    \llap{\color{gray!40}%
      \chaptertitlename~\thechapter}}
  {20pt}{\huge\color{blue!50!black}}

\begin{document}

\chapter{A Test Chapter Title}

\end{document}

enter image description here

And a solution using TikZ with the text and eight offset copies:

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{titlesec}
\usepackage{lmodern}

\titleformat{\chapter}[display]
  {\normalfont\fontsize{37}{48}\sffamily\filleft}
  {\begin{tikzpicture}[
    baseline,
    every node/.style={anchor=base,inner sep=0pt,outer sep=0pt,align=right},
    transparency group]
  \foreach \c in {0,...,7}  
    \node[shift={(45*\c:1.65pt)},opacity=0.03] {\chaptertitlename~\thechapter};
  \node[opacity=0.13] {\chaptertitlename~\thechapter};
  \end{tikzpicture}%
  }
  {20pt}{\huge\color{blue!50!black}}

\begin{document}

\chapter{A Test Chapter Title}

\end{document}

enter image description here

The \foreach loop (thanks to Tom Bombadil for this suggestion) allows to easily control the number and placement of offset copies.

I used the titlesec package interface, but this can be done directly, without using packages, by redefining the \@makechapterhead command (in report or book), or the command in charge of typeseting the chapter headings in any other document class.

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Gonzalo Medina
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    You could also use a foreach loop for that: \foreach \c in {0,...,3} together with \node[shift={(90*\c:1.5pt)}]. This would make it easier to modify the number of copys and distances. – Tom Bombadil Jun 10 '13 at 00:37
  • @TomBombadil that's a great suggestion! I'll incorporate it to my answer in some minutes. Thanks! – Gonzalo Medina Jun 10 '13 at 00:41
  • @TomBombadil I did something similar here: Contour around multi-line tikz text – Qrrbrbirlbel Jun 10 '13 at 00:42
  • @Qrrbrbirlbel: Hehe, I also thought of this as I once did it that way. I was always changing the number of loops, as few looked too bad and many took too long ;) – Tom Bombadil Jun 10 '13 at 00:45
  • @TomBombadil True, but in this case, one could use TikZ’ external library, set the next file name to something dependent of the chapter counter so that even if one changes the order of chapters the process is only done once for every integer (unless you change fonts or the actual process). – Qrrbrbirlbel Jun 10 '13 at 00:50