Fading tikz path border

Question

Quick and hopefully easy question. Is there a way to apply fading both to the filling and to the border of a tikz path?

mwe

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{fadings}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \node at (1, 0.5) {\Large\bfseries fading};
  \draw[ultra thick, fill=purple, path fading=east] (0,0) rectangle (2,1);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

result

I'd like the black border to fade to alpha in the same way of the filling.

EDIT: Reading the comments it seems something specific to my setup, probably poppler/Evince, with chrome-integrated reader it works fine.

Here's the pdf: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vn402eaw7kil3cj/fade.pdf?dl=0

and the log file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lhz9fclot9n0qpx/fade.log?dl=0

So, is there a way to make it work with all PDF readers? Not sure it matters, but I can draw something similar with inkscape (just setting border fill to gradient) and it works fine.

Mine is fading with the exact same code O_o https://i.stack.imgur.com/HdcjJ.png — Phelype Oleinik, Jan 26 '18 at 12:20
Works for me with pdflatex from texlive 2017 https://i.stack.imgur.com/XXBNT.png. Also works with xelatex. — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Jan 26 '18 at 13:55
@samcarter this very same example? what could be going on? tried boh pdf- and xelatex, same result. Maybe it's evince, I'll try another pdf reader... — filippo, Jan 26 '18 at 14:36
@samcarter see the edit please, it works with Chrome pdf reader, but I need it to work with any pdf reader and possibly look fine on print too — filippo, Jan 26 '18 at 15:02
Any PDF reader is an impossible task. Adobe has the reference implementation. Sumatra on Windows is also pretty good. I see the faded border in your link by the way. So should you I guess — percusse, Jan 26 '18 at 15:05
@filippo As a workaround you could stack the red rectangle without boarder on top of a black rectangle (a bit larger) with fading. — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Jan 26 '18 at 15:11
@percusse don't get me wrong, it's probably a bug and I'll report it to poppler devs. What I'm saying is that I'm looking for a solution that works around it that works with any pdf reader, if there isn't one I can easily enough live without fading ;-) — filippo, Jan 26 '18 at 15:11
@filippo There cannot be solution that works with every pdf reader as there are also text based readers. — samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz, Jan 26 '18 at 15:12

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 26 '18 at 15:15

1

Workaround:

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{fadings}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \fill[black, path fading=east] (-0.07,-0.07) rectangle (2.07,1.07);
    \node at (1, 0.5) {\Large\bfseries fading};
  \fill[purple, path fading=east] (0,0) rectangle (2,1);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

answered Jan 26 '18 at 15:15

samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz

158,329

Great, now I just need to find a way to make it work with more complex paths. Do you know if is there a way to scale a path with respect to its center? That way I could use just duplicate the path, scale it up, and fill it with black – filippo Jan 26 '18 at 15:27
@filippo Maybe something like https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/399382/36296 could help – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Jan 26 '18 at 15:54
thank you that's perfect (at least for paths with proper symmetry) – filippo Jan 26 '18 at 16:18

Fading tikz path border

1 Answers1