How to eliminate the gap in a chain?

Question

In the following code, I used node distance=0 and outer sep=0 to position the nodes besides each other seamlessly.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{chains}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
    start chain=going right,
    every node/.style={on chain, fill=black, text=white},
    text height=.8em,
    text depth=.2em,
    node distance=0,
    outer sep=0pt
  ]
  \node {a};
  \node {bc};
  \node {def};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

However, the result still shows gaps.

small gaps are still left between the nodes

What did I miss?

It’s a rendering issue. See LaTeX question about white spaces between color tabs and two small questions and How do I evenly fill the background color of a block of elements inside a TikZ matrix?. I don’t have it in Adobe Reader and Foxit Reader and at some zoom levels in SumatraPDF. — Qrrbrbirlbel, Nov 09 '13 at 22:05
If you want to cheat, say node distance=-.1pt (or outer sep) or something like that. — Qrrbrbirlbel, Nov 09 '13 at 22:07

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 13 '13 at 22:55

It indeed is a problem of the PDF viewer program, not the LaTeX rendering. The document shows with gaps in some viewers, for example

evince
zathura
pdf.js viewer included in Firefox
Perfect Viewer for Android

and without in others, notably

the google drive viewer.

Workaround

But still you can use -\pgflinewidth as the node distance.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{chains}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
    start chain=going right,
    every node/.style={on chain, fill=black, text=white},
    text height=.8em,
    text depth=.2em,
    node distance=-\pgflinewidth,
    outer sep=0pt
  ]
  \node {a};
  \node {bc};
  \node {def};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

enter image description here

How to eliminate the gap in a chain?

1 Answers1

Workaround