Writing a left aligned block of text with arbitrary spacing using PGF/TikZ on a PDF file

Question

The following text uses PGF/TikZ to write on top of a PDF file. The use case is filling a PDF form.

In some cases, one wants to write a block of text which is aligned. Let's say left aligned, as in the example below.

However, in addition one might want the lines in that block of text to be arbitrarily spaced. I'm not sure of a good way to this, so that is my question.

How can I write a block of left aligned text that has arbitrarily specified spacing, including the possibility of non-uniform spacing?

The code I'm using writes the block of text inside a node. I don't have to do it that way, but that's the way I've been doing is so far. If I put the lines in separate nodes, then I would have to align them manually.

\documentclass[twoside=semi, 12pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{fouriernc}
% From https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/277892/4671                                                                            
% echo | groff -T pdf > blank.pdf                                                                                              
% echo "" | ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE=a4 - blank.pdf                                                                                  
\def\Filename{blank.pdf}
%http://www.freepubquiz.co.uk/famous-addresses.html

\begin{document}
\includepdf[pagecommand=

{\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture, overlay]

    \node [font=\fontsize{11}{11}\bfseries, align=left] at (11, -1.5){Dr John Dolittle\Oxenthorpe Road\Puddleby-on-the-Marsh

\Slopshire, England};

  \end{tikzpicture}}

,pages=1]{\Filename}
\end{document}

Answer 1

As mentioned in comments, one option might be to use a TikZ \matrix, with the help of \usetikzlibrary{matrix}. Like a tabular, a row is ended with a \\, but note in particular that the last row must also end with \\

However, that might be overcomplicating things, \\[<distance>] works in a normal node where align=... is set as well, and the result is the same as far as I can see, given that the row sep and the \baselineskip match. So you can probably take your existing code and add [<distance>] as you see fit.

The baselineskip is the distance between the baselines of text lines. In \fontsize{10}{12}, the 10 indicates the font size and 12 the baselineskip in points. Note in the code below I set the row sep to 12pt, which is the same as is used in \fontsize{10}{12}. If you, in my example below, increase the row sep value to e.g. 15pt, and use \fontsize{10}{15} in the node settings, the lines will still line up.

The example below shows both methods, and adds some horizontal lines to indicate that apart from the padding (whitespace between node/matrix border and text), the result is the same. Left, matrix, right a normal node with align=left.

\documentclass[border=5mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\matrix (m) [draw,matrix of nodes,nodes={anchor=base west, font=\bfseries\strut}, row sep={12pt,between origins}] {Dr John Dolittle\\Oxenthorpe Road\\[20pt]Puddleby-on-the-Marsh\\[2cm]Slopshire, England\\};
% the positioning here is to vertically align the bottom rows of the node and matrix
\path (m-4-1.base east) ++(1.5cm,0) node (a) [draw,anchor=base west, font=\fontsize{10}{12}\bfseries, align=left] {Dr John Dolittle\Oxenthorpe Road\[20pt]Puddleby-on-the-Marsh\[2cm]Slopshire, England};
% horizontal lines to indicate that the spacing is the same in both cases
\foreach \Row in {1,2,3,4}
  \draw [red] (m-\Row-1.base west) -- ++(9cm,0);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}