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TL;DR: Is there something like tikzposter for infographics?

How can I make a sophisticated infographic in LaTeX / Tikz? I found hardly any examples in the net. The closest I got was http://rainnic.altervista.org/content/two-ideas-infographic-cv-using-latex-and-tikz

What I want to do

I did a Specialization at Coursera and I want to make a infographic to show what has been done. The infographic I want to produce is not about statistics like so many tools provide, but instead more along those lines:

Why on earth do I consider LaTeX/Tikz?

  1. LaTeX can be brought under collaborative version control (like git).
  2. Effort put into a decent LaTeX document can be transferred to the next LaTeX document. E.g. I have successively build on my running text LaTeX template (for articles, books, theses, white papers, reports, etc.) for a while and now I am able to produce great results with just a few clicks.
  3. Many other "professional software engineering" advantages (that admittedly I have not capitalised upon yet) like using http://yeoman.io and continuous delivery.
  4. Lack of alternatives

What? There are so many alternatives! What alternatives did I try?

Online alternatives

I have tried or inspected many of those

Issues with those:

  • All of those are online tools - I don't like that.
  • The ones I tried are quite restrictive in the free variant.
  • Most are about statistics visualisation, and my use case isn't.
  • One that is not about statistics are http://www.easel.ly/ - which was not much fun (maybe I have been too long out of the point-and-click game with Linux and LaTeX) and rather restricted in the free variant.
  • The best so far was https://www.canva.com
  • Not tried so far was http://piktochart.com which looks very similar to https://www.canva.com

(Regarding piktochart and canva I don't have a closing statement.)

Desktop alternatives

  • PowerPoint, OpenOffice/LibreOffice Draw: results could be improved.
  • Incscape: I tried a couple of times, but I found it difficult to use - but quite possible I didn't try hard enough.
  • HTML5 + CSS3: I don't speak them.

Except for HTML5 + CSS3, they don't have the advantage of being text before compilation either - just like the online alternatives.

EDIT: Answer

Since I finished with my infographic I might be able to say what I have done: In fact I did not find anything specifically tailored to infographics. However this is not as bad as it sounds, as TikZ's features already provide a lot of things that work. For me the mindmap tikz-library was particularily useful. I'd additionally recommend considering tcolorbox (even though I didn't use it). Use geometry for the size of the infographic. I based the whole thing on tikzposter but without using any boxes - so I basically only used it for the heading, so one can easily do without it.

Make42
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    Can this question be answered in the abstract? The design has to suit the content. – Thérèse Nov 30 '15 at 18:02
  • I hope to refine my question, once I get a couple of answers. Currently I am in the "just give me something to work with"-phase, as I haven't found really anything that would help me. Edit: Btw.: It isn't that abstract: I gave quite a few examples. – Make42 Nov 30 '15 at 19:54
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    Well you may have give "a few examples" but they are all different and you are not telling us what you want. You seem to have found already something to start with, but you have failed to tell us why these are not appropriate. We can throw at you a plethora of other examples and sites (here's one for free: http://www.texample.net which incidently is the first response for a "tikz examples" google search) but not of them may suit your need. We cannot tell until you tell us. This site is to answer specific texnical questions, where you have tried something but it doesn't quite work. – ArTourter Nov 30 '15 at 22:07
  • Nor have you explained why on earth you want to produce something like that in LaTeX / TikZ of all things. Only somebody crazy would do that. – cfr Nov 30 '15 at 23:59
  • @cfr: Does this provide more context? – Make42 Dec 01 '15 at 09:47
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    Even in its revised form, your question asks a great deal: are we supposed to decide on a topic, gather the information, think up a design that suits it, and decide on the best techniques to implement the design? Couldn’t you supply a minimal example so that we’re spared at least the burden of gathering and typing up the information? – Thérèse Dec 01 '15 at 22:45
  • I still have no idea what would qualify as a satisfactory answer to this question. I don't know what the desiderata are. I completely disagree with those voting to reopen on the grounds that the question is still not one which can be answered. I wonder, in fact, if there are not really (at least) two questions here: (1) about designing a suitable image and (2) about implementing that image in LaTeX. If so, note that (1) is simply off-topic for this site. However, there is a graphic design site, I think. So you could ask about the design there and then ask about implementation later here. – cfr Dec 19 '15 at 21:45
  • Since I finished with my infographic I might be able to say what I have done: In fact I did not find anything specifically tailored to infographics. However this is not as bad as it sounds, as TikZ's features already provide a lot of things that work. For me the mindmap tikz-library was particularily useful. I'd additionally recommend considering tcolorbox (even though I didn't use it). Use geometry for the size of the infographic. I based the whole thing on tikzposter but without using any boxes - so I basically only used it for the heading, so one can easily do without it. – Make42 Dec 21 '15 at 15:03

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