How to compose figure from text with latex?

Question

I have an ascii image like

+---------------
|  xxxxxxx
+---------------
|  xxxxxxx
+---------------

I want to show this in figure environment. So currently I try like this:

\begin{figure}
    \lstinputlisting{src.ascii}
    \caption{xxx}
    \label{fig:xxx}
\end{figure}

which works, except for some subtlities with table of listings and table of figures settings. The above codes treat src.ascii as listing which counters my mind that src.ascii is, exactly, a figure.

I think I should either export the ascii file as an eps file or set listing package to omit some source input. How could I achieve it?

Thanks and Best regards.

A MWC

\documentclass{report}
\usepackage[procnames]{listings}

\begin{document}

\lstlistoflistings
\listoffigures

\begin{figure}
    \lstinputlisting{xxx.ascii}
    \caption{xxx}
    \label{fig:xxx}
\end{figure}
\end{document}

And an example ascii image:

+-----------------+
|                 |
+-----------------+

Can you post a minimum working example ? – codebeard Jul 07 '12 at 03:04 — codebeard, Jul 07 '12 at 03:04
@codebeard FYI. – Summer_More_More_Tea Jul 07 '12 at 03:19 — Summer_More_More_Tea, Jul 07 '12 at 03:19

score 19 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 07 '12 at 03:10

19

There are many ways to have "real" figures in LaTeX text, but if you insist on ASCII art (e.g. to show old-fashioned illustrations in RFCs), then the following works:

\begin{figure}
\begin{verbatim}
 +-----------------+
 |                 |
 +-----------------+
\end{verbatim}
\caption{Box in an old RFC}
\label{fig:ascii-box}
\end{figure}

answered Jul 07 '12 at 03:10

Boris

38,129

how to scale it? eg ascii art is too big – droid192 Apr 29 '19 at 23:02
1

{\tiny\begin{verbatim}...\end{verbatim}} will work – Boris Apr 30 '19 at 20:09
Yes, there is no need to embed it inside a figure – debuti Jul 31 '19 at 14:13

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 07 '12 at 05:49

As Boris mentioned, you can use verbatim which will not add anything to \lstlistoflistings, but if you still wanted to use the listings package for some reason (e.g. if you need more advanced formatting than provided by verbatim), just use the nolol (no list-of-listings) option:

\begin{figure}
    \lstinputlisting[nolol]{xxx.ascii}
    \caption{xxx}
    \label{fig:xxx}
\end{figure}

How to compose figure from text with latex?

2 Answers2