[Tex/LaTex] Draw a nice question mark

tikz-pgf

I am writing my thesis presentation and would like to put an image of a question mark at the end for questions. Can anyone give me some code for a nice question mark drawing.

Requirements:

  • Coded in Pgf/Tikz
  • Nice looking
  • Highly customizable
  • Not too informal

I can draw in Tikz, however I don't know how to do big nice drawings, but I'm able to slightly modify code.

EDIT: I said not too informal, but I also want it not to be too formal. Something along the lines of this, but it doesn't have to be in 3D.

Best Answer

Here is a nicer example. It is definitely not a simple structure, though:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=0.1]
\draw (48.656200,67.906197)..controls (48.656200,75.199203) and (43.636700,84.164101)..(26.421900,84.164101)
    ..controls (13.507800,84.164101) and (6.457030,75.796898)..(6.457030,68.144501)
    ..controls (6.457030,63.839802) and (9.683590,62.882801)..(11.476600,62.882801)
    ..controls (13.507800,62.882801) and (16.378901,64.320297)..(16.378901,67.906197)
    ..controls (16.378901,70.656197) and (14.347700,72.808601)..(11.359400,72.808601)
    ..controls (10.640600,72.808601) and (10.402300,72.808601)..(10.160200,72.687500)
    ..controls (12.793000,78.902298) and (19.726601,81.773399)..(26.062500,81.773399)
    ..controls (39.570301,81.773399) and (39.570301,73.046898)..(39.570301,68.503899)
    ..controls (39.570301,61.449200) and (37.417999,59.179699)..(35.386700,57.027302)
    ..controls (27.257799,48.300800) and (24.628901,37.179699)..(24.628901,29.886700)
    --(24.628901,24.148399)..controls (24.628901,21.996099) and (24.628901,21.519501)..(25.941401,21.519501)
    ..controls (27.257799,21.519501) and (27.257799,22.355499)..(27.257799,24.507799)
    --(27.257799,28.929701)..controls (27.257799,35.984402) and (30.128901,46.503899)..(42.203098,55.472698)
    ..controls (45.550800,57.984402) and (48.656200,61.687500)..(48.656200,67.906197)
    --cycle;
\draw (31.679701,5.859380)..controls (31.679701,8.964840) and (29.050800,11.597700)..(25.941401,11.597700)
    ..controls (22.355499,11.597700) and (20.085899,8.726560)..(20.085899,5.859380)
    ..controls (20.085899,2.269530) and (22.953100,0.000000)..(25.824200,0.000000)
    ..controls (29.171900,0.000000) and (31.679701,2.628910)..(31.679701,5.859380)
    --cycle;
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Of course, the code by itself is not that useful, so here is how I obtained it:

I wanted to use makempy, but I could not get it to work on my computer (debian with TeXLive 2009), so I basically imitated what it is supposed to do:

I started with this TeX document: qmark.tex:

\startTEXpage[scale=10000]$?$\stopTEXpage

I processed in with context:

texexec qmark.tex

then converted the resulting pdf to postscript:

pdftops qmark.pdf

which I then converted to a metapost file with pstoedit:

pstoedit -dt -f  mpost qmark.ps > qmark.mp

The resulting mpfile was:

% Converted from PostScript(TM) to MetaPost by pstoedit
% MetaPost backend contributed by Scott Pakin <scott+ps2ed_AT_pakin.org>
% pstoedit is Copyright (C) 1993 - 2009 Wolfgang Glunz <wglunz35_AT_pstoedit.net>

% Generate structured PostScript
prologues := 1;

% Display a given string with its *baseline* at a given location
% and with a given rotation angle
vardef showtext(expr origin)(expr angle)(expr string) =
  draw string infont defaultfont scaled defaultscale
    rotated angle shifted origin;
enddef;

beginfig(1);
linecap := butt;
linejoin := mitered;
fill (48.656200,67.906197)..controls (48.656200,75.199203) and (43.636700,84.164101)..(26.421900,84.164101)
    ..controls (13.507800,84.164101) and (6.457030,75.796898)..(6.457030,68.144501)
    ..controls (6.457030,63.839802) and (9.683590,62.882801)..(11.476600,62.882801)
    ..controls (13.507800,62.882801) and (16.378901,64.320297)..(16.378901,67.906197)
    ..controls (16.378901,70.656197) and (14.347700,72.808601)..(11.359400,72.808601)
    ..controls (10.640600,72.808601) and (10.402300,72.808601)..(10.160200,72.687500)
    ..controls (12.793000,78.902298) and (19.726601,81.773399)..(26.062500,81.773399)
    ..controls (39.570301,81.773399) and (39.570301,73.046898)..(39.570301,68.503899)
    ..controls (39.570301,61.449200) and (37.417999,59.179699)..(35.386700,57.027302)
    ..controls (27.257799,48.300800) and (24.628901,37.179699)..(24.628901,29.886700)
    --(24.628901,24.148399)..controls (24.628901,21.996099) and (24.628901,21.519501)..(25.941401,21.519501)
    ..controls (27.257799,21.519501) and (27.257799,22.355499)..(27.257799,24.507799)
    --(27.257799,28.929701)..controls (27.257799,35.984402) and (30.128901,46.503899)..(42.203098,55.472698)
    ..controls (45.550800,57.984402) and (48.656200,61.687500)..(48.656200,67.906197)
    --cycle;
fill (31.679701,5.859380)..controls (31.679701,8.964840) and (29.050800,11.597700)..(25.941401,11.597700)
    ..controls (22.355499,11.597700) and (20.085899,8.726560)..(20.085899,5.859380)
    ..controls (20.085899,2.269530) and (22.953100,0.000000)..(25.824200,0.000000)
    ..controls (29.171900,0.000000) and (31.679701,2.628910)..(31.679701,5.859380)
    --cycle;
fill (55.277302,0.000000)--cycle;
endfig;
end

Notice that the path syntax in metapost is the same as in tikz, so I deleted all the lines except the fill commands, and replaced the fill commands with \draw commands for tikz.

It should be pretty easy to make a script that does all that.

Here is the result:

outline od question mark

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