Add Fingerprint-like markings accompanying text

Question

I am working on a longer document with different reliabilities of the sources. At first, I wanted to change the font color to indicate the different levels (red - low, yellow - medium, green - high confidence). Not surprisingly, this made the text colorful and less readable. A second idea was to change the background of the text, offering a bit more readability, but it is still more hindering than useful.

Now, I would like to add a fingerprint-like visualization/marking next to the text. The confidence of the text is given rather on a paragraph than a sentence level, hence, little inaccuracies are not an issue.

Please consider this very professional sketch of how I would imagine it:

Since my LaTeX experience with anything other than "standard texts" is quite low, I am not even sure how to begin with trying something like this. Especially when I need to somehow "sync" between both parts. My first idea here was to use minipages, but then I had no idea how to indicate up to which height the "red part" should go. Right now, the document has 50 pages and I expect it to double its number of pages until I am finished and about 90% of them will need such a marking. Therefore, a method that does not require any kind of pixel values or much manual correction would be great.

I am very open to other useful ideas of how to indicate "levels" of the text passages visually, without hindering readability. Just now, I had the idea that it may be easier to color the first (few pixels?) part of each line with the "current" color, which may be easier.

Thanks a lot for your ideas and help,

Raubwurst

PS: If useful/needed: I am mainly working with overleaf

Update: After using the great solution by Sandy G., I have an issue with footnotes. They appear on the end of the enclosed text block, but no longer on the footer of the page. I use the (standard) \footnote{}

Welcome. // The easist thing to do would be using \marginpar{} . Place as text e.g. usefül symbols from fontawesome (see https://tug.ctan.org/info/symbols/comprehensive/symbols-a4.pdf) , or short colored objects, e.g. by using \tikz{} as "text". — MS-SPO, Dec 12 '23 at 12:27
The changebar package comes into mind. Not sure if this is applicable here. — Jasper Habicht, Dec 12 '23 at 12:31
Maybe https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/86381/adding-vertical-lines-to-each-side-of-a-paragraph could help — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Dec 12 '23 at 13:06
Better to ask a new question and link to this one. But also, see the comment by @samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz — Sandy G, Dec 13 '23 at 15:06

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 12 '23 at 17:35

3

Here is a possibility using tcolorbox.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tcolorbox}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\tcbuselibrary{skins, breakable}
\newtcolorbox{fprint}[1]{%
blankest, breakable,
before upper={\parindent15pt},
beforeafter skip balanced=0.2\baselineskip plus 2pt,
borderline west={8mm}{-20mm}{#1}
}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[2]
\begin{fprint}{red}
\lipsum[3]
\end{fprint}
\begin{fprint}{yellow}
\lipsum[4]
\end{fprint}
\begin{fprint}{green}
\lipsum[5]
\end{fprint}
\lipsum[6]
\end{document}

answered Dec 12 '23 at 17:35

Sandy G

42,558

Thank you! That's exactly how I imagined it :) – Raubwurst Dec 13 '23 at 13:55
Update: It seems like this approach has issues with footnotes, which are no longer on the footer of the page, but after the enclosed text block. I updated my initial post with a screenshot, where the footnotes are followed by two lines of text from another colored fprint – Raubwurst Dec 13 '23 at 14:32
@Raubwurst \usepackage{footnote} \BeforeBeginEnvironment{fprint}{\savenotes} \AfterEndEnvironment{fprint}{\spewnotes} – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Dec 13 '23 at 14:40
@samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz thank you :3 All of you are awesome! – Raubwurst Dec 14 '23 at 08:29
@Raubwurst You're welcome! Have fun with @ SandyG's great answers! – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Dec 14 '23 at 08:47

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 12 '23 at 12:44

1

Here's a simple example using \marginpar:

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{fourier}
\begin{document}
 \marginpar{\warning}\lipsum[1-2]
For some embedding \dots \marginpar{\leafNE\leafNE\leafNE}\lipsum[4]
\end{document}

answered Dec 12 '23 at 12:44

MS-SPO

11,519

2

Thank you for the suggestion! – Raubwurst Dec 13 '23 at 13:51

Add Fingerprint-like markings accompanying text

2 Answers2