For the sizes, you can use the current bounding box together with \pgfgetlastxy:
\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\newcommand*{\ExtractCoordinate}[3]{\path (#1); \pgfgetlastxy{#2}{#3};}%
\newdimen\tlx
\newdimen\tlx
\newdimen\brx
\newdimen\bry
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw (-3,-1) rectangle (3,1) (-2,-2) rectangle (2,2);
\foreach \x in {north west,south west,south east,north east}
{ \fill[red] (current bounding box.\x) circle (0.01);
}
\ExtractCoordinate{current bounding box.north west}{\tlx}{\tly}
\ExtractCoordinate{current bounding box.south east}{\brx}{\bry}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\myheight}{(+\tly-\bry)/28.452755}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\mywidth}{(-\tlx+\brx)/28.452755}
\node[below right] at (-2,1) {height: \myheight\ cm};
\node[above left] at (2,-1) {width: \mywidth\ cm};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
Edit 1: Ah, now I get it. Here is a still not automatic version. You set two commands in each tikzpicture:
\maximumdimensions{4}{3}, which is the desired width and height, at the beginning of the picture.
\getscalingfactors which will draw nodes with a recommended scaling factor in the middle of your picture if the image if to high/wide:
\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{xifthen}
\newcommand*{\ExtractCoordinate}[3]{\path (#1); \pgfgetlastxy{#2}{#3};}%
\newdimen\tlx
\newdimen\tlx
\newdimen\brx
\newdimen\bry
\def\xscalefactor{}
\def\yscalefactor{}
\parindent0mm
\newcommand{\getscalingfactors}{%
\ExtractCoordinate{current bounding box.north west}{\tlx}{\tly}
\ExtractCoordinate{current bounding box.south east}{\brx}{\bry}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\myheight}{(+\tly-\bry)/28.452755}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\mywidth}{(-\tlx+\brx)/28.452755}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\xsf}{\maxwidth/\mywidth}
\pgfmathsetmacro{\ysf}{\maxheight/\myheight}
\global\edef\xscalefactor{\xsf}
\global\edef\yscalefactor{\ysf}
\pgfmathtruncatemacro{\xsfc}{\xsf*10000}
\pgfmathtruncatemacro{\ysfc}{\ysf*10000}
\ifthenelse{\xsfc > 10000}{}{\node[fill=white,above] at (current bounding box.center) {x-s: \xsf};}
\ifthenelse{\ysfc > 10000}{}{\node[fill=white,below] at (current bounding box.center) {y-s: \ysf};}
}
\newcommand{\maximumdimensions}[2]{% width, height
\global\edef\maxwidth{#1} % in cm
\global\edef\maxheight{#2} % in cm
}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=1]
\maximumdimensions{4}{3}
\draw[fill=orange] (-3,-1) rectangle (3,1) (-2,-2) rectangle (2,2);
\getscalingfactors
\end{tikzpicture}
\lipsum[1]
\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=1]
\maximumdimensions{4}{3}
\draw[fill=orange!50!gray] (0,0) circle (3);
\draw[fill=red!50!gray] (3,1) circle (1);
\draw[fill=blue!50!gray] (-2,2) circle (1);
\draw[fill=green!50!gray] (-3,-2) circle (1);
\draw[fill=yellow!50!gray] (2,-1) circle (1);
\getscalingfactors
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
If you scale the picture down enough, the nodes inside the picture vanish:
\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=0.66] and \begin{tikzpicture}[scale=0.497]
I don't think that it would be possible to do this easily using the current set of tools (gnuplot and epslatex). The reason is that depending on the dimensions and font size of the final LaTeX document, you would need to calculate manually the dimensions and the font size of the figures.
What you require can be easily accomplished using pgfplots, which is a LaTeX package so that all the code for drawing graphics can be included into your .tex file. See example below where the figure naturally fills up the column width of the document and uses the same font size.
The process which I use to generate graphs is the following:
- Run experiments using program of choice, output text file
- Use
pgfplots to write LaTeX code in main .tex file to plot graph
See the section "Reading coordinates from tables" of the pgfplots manual for more information.
\documentclass[5p]{elsarticle}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}[h!]
\centering
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
width=\columnwidth,
xlabel=$x$,
ylabel=$y$,
legend pos=north west]
\addplot {x^3};
\addlegendentry{$y = x^3$};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\lipsum[1-2]
\end{document}
\documentclass[3p]{elsarticle}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}[h!]
\centering
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
width=\columnwidth,
xlabel=$x$,
ylabel=$y$,
legend pos=north west]
\addplot {x^3};
\addlegendentry{$y = x^3$};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\lipsum[1-2]
\end{document}
Best Answer
You can define a new value for
fontwith\DeclareCaptionFont: