[Tex/LaTex] multi-line text for brace decoration in tikz

bracesdecorationstikz-pgf

I'm trying to make a time-line with events by means of tikZ.
Everything is going fine, I found (here) some nice examples and explanations but…
I do a brace decoration for my time-line which has long "caption". What I'm trying is to make this caption multi-line, but it's not working.
For example, in the text for node I can put \\ inside the text and it makes the text two line.
But this way is totally useless in text for the brace decoration.
the minimum example is like next 



\documentclass[a4paper,12pt,oneside,titlepage]{report}  
\usepackage{tikz}  
\usetikzlibrary{snakes, positioning, decorations.pathreplacing, calc}  
\tikzset{  
    date labels/.style = {  
        % Font  
        font = \sffamily,  
        % Anchor  
        anchor = north,  
        %Angle  
        %rotate = 45  
    }    
}    
\tikzset{   
    event/.style = {    
        %Shape  
        rectangle,  
        % Size  
        rounded corners = 2mm,  
        % Border  
        thick,  
        draw = #1!50,  
        %Filling  
        fill = #1!20,  
        % Font  
        align = center,    
        font = \sffamily\scriptsize,
    }   
}   
\tikzset{  
    side labels/.style = {  
        %Shape  
        rectangle,  
        % Size  
        minimum size = 6mm,  
        rounded corners = 2mm,  
        % Border  
        very thick,  
        draw = black!50,  
        %Filling  
        top color = white,  
        bottom color = black!20,  
        % Font  
        font = \sffamily,  
        % Anchor  
        anchor = east,  
    }  
}  
\begin{document}        
    \begin{tikzpicture}[line width = 1pt]  
        \node [side labels] at (-1, 0) {Customer A};  
        \draw[fill = black!100] {[snake] (0, 0)circle[radius=2pt] -- (2, 0)circle[radius=2pt]} -- (7, 0)circle[radius=2pt] -- (9, 0)circle[radius=2pt];  
        \draw (0, -0.05) node [date labels] {1} -- (0, 0.05) node (paid_date) {};  
        \draw (2, -0.05) node [date labels] {30} -- (2, 0.05) node (paid_back_date) {};  
        \draw (7, -0.05) node [date labels] {280} -- (7, 0.05) node (next_paid_date) {};  
        \draw (9, -0.05) node [date labels] {365} -- (9, 0.05) node (stop_date) {};
        \begin{scope}[on grid]
            \node (utility_first) [event = gray] at (-1, 1.25) {$1^{st}$ loan\\utilization};  
            \draw [gray!50] (utility_first) -- (paid_date);  
            \node (start_monitoring) [event = gray] at (1, 1.25) {start\\monitoring};  
            \draw [gray!50] (start_monitoring) -- (paid_date);  
            \node (paid_back) [event = gray] at (2.75, 1.25) {$1^{st}$ loan\\paid back};  
            \draw [gray!50] (paid_back) -- (paid_back_date);  
            \node (utility_second) [event = gray] at (7, 1.25) {$2^{nd}$ loan\\utilization};  
            \draw [gray!50] (utility_second) -- (next_paid_date);  
            \node (stop_monitoring) [event = gray] at (9, 1.25) {stop\\monitoring};  
            \draw [gray!50] (stop_monitoring) -- (stop_date);  
        \end{scope}  
        \draw [decorate, decoration = {brace, amplitude = 10pt, mirror}, xshift = 0pt, yshift = -42pt]  
        ($(paid_back_date.south) + (0, -0.5)$) -- ($(stop_date.south) + (0, -0.5)$) node [black, midway, xshift = 0cm, yshift = -0.6cm] {\scriptsize ``real'' $2^{nd}$ loan utilization period under monitoring = $335$ days};  
    \end{tikzpicture}  
\end{document}

what I want is to have the caption for the brace displayed in two lines instead of 1.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Best Answer

There are two possibilities: You can either specify a text width=<length> for the node, which will automatically break the text if it exceeds the <length>, or you can supply an align=<alignment option> and manually break your text using \\.

So, either

node [align=center,midway,anchor=north,yshift=-1.5ex,font=\scriptsize] { ``real'' $2^{nd}$ loan utilization period\\under monitoring = $335$ days};

or

node [align=center,text width=5cm,midway,anchor=north,yshift=-1.5ex,font=\scriptsize] {``real'' $2^{nd}$ loan utilization period under monitoring = $335$ days};

will yield

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