I think practically we will not use both tcolorbox
and mdframed
in a single input file. Correct me if I am wrong. So we have to choose either tcolorbox
or mdframed
. However, without knowing the strong and weak points of both, we can only choose one by gambling.
Shortly speaking, what are the weak and strong points of both packages? The answers really influence the path of my life in TeX.
Best Answer
I have the understanding that
tcolorbox
capabilities are a superset ofmdframed
. Whilemdframed
tries to give you tools to create colorful frames, they look pale and simpler to me comparing totcolorbox
ones.I think with enough
tikz
ninja skills you can achieve pretty much what you want with both, but somehow thetcolorbox
syntax and options are simpler to me.Also,
tcolorbox
has this "upper part/lower part" capabilities thatmdframed
lacks and creating a simple colored frame with a title seems simpler withtcolorbox
.From the documentation of mdframed
the equivalent in tcolorbox documentation:
@claudio-fiandrino mentioned that mdframe boxes can be customized with tikz. This is also the case with tcolorbox, since it relies on tikz.