TikZ – Repeated text along path

tikz-pgf

I'm trying to have some text repeated along a path. I tried what was prescribed in the PGF manual under /pgf/decoration/text effects/repeat text, but, as you can see, it doesn't have the effect I want:

I'd like something like below, but repeated around the path:

MWE

\documentclass[border=1cm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.text}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    [block/.style={draw, rectangle, minimum size=5cm, align=center}]

    \node [block,
           postaction={decoration={text effects along path, text={BOX BOUNDARY\ },
               text effects/.cd,
                   repeat text,
                   character count=\m, character total=\n,
                   characters={text along path, scale=0.5+\m/\n/2}},
               decorate}]
           (box){};
    
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Best Answer

Apparently, it does not work with a node. Can you use a rectangle? (you can always add your node without text on top of the rectangle)

\documentclass[tikz, border=1 cm]{standalone}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.text}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw[%
postaction={decoration={text effects along path, text={BOX BOUNDARY\ },
text effects/.cd,
repeat text,
character count=\m, character total=\n,
characters={text along path, scale=0.5+\m/\n/2}},
decorate},
] (0,0) rectangle (5,5);           
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Rotate a node but not its content: the case of the ellipse decoration

The source of the difficulty is that ellipses are constructed in a particular way in TikZ. They are paths that start from the x-axis and proceed counter-clockwise around their centre. The vast majority of the time, the exact parametrisation doesn't matter. You appear to have found the one situation where it does!

In the actual question, you only want to be able to mirror the ellipse, and so draw it starting from the negative x-axis (the title of the question suggests a more flexible approach). That's actually not too hard since we can exploit the symmetry of the ellipse. The key is to provide it with a negative x-radius, since then it will start from the negative x-axis (and proceed clockwise, but we could correct for that by negating the y-radius as well). To do this, we interrupt the call from the node shape to the drawing command and flip the sign of the x-radius. The simplest way to do this is to redefine the \pgfpathellipse macro to do the negation and then call the original macro. The following code does this.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations,shapes,decorations.markings}
\makeatletter
\let\origpgfpathellipse=\pgfpathellipse
\def\revpgfpathellipse#1#2#3{%
  #2%
  \pgf@xa=-\pgf@x
  \origpgfpathellipse{#1}{\pgfqpoint{\pgf@xa}{0pt}}{#3}}
\makeatother

\tikzset{
  reversed ellipse/.style={
    ellipse,
    reverse the ellipse%
  },
  reverse the ellipse/.code={
    \let\pgfpathellipse=\revpgfpathellipse
  }
}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[ellipse,
  draw,
  postaction={
    decorate,
    decoration={
      markings,
      mark=at position 1 with {
        \arrow[line width=5pt,blue]{>}
      }
    }
  }
] at (0,0) {hello world};

\node[reversed ellipse,
  draw,
  postaction={
    decorate,
    decoration={
      markings,
      mark=at position 1 with {
        \arrow[line width=5pt,blue]{>}
      }
    }
  }
] at (0,-2) {hello world};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Here's the result:

rotated ellipse

(the arrow got clipped, but you can see where it lies)

[Tex/LaTex] TikZ: Text along path

To avoid touching the path's ends, you could add pre length and post length options do the decoration, such as:

\draw[postaction={decoration={text along path,
  text = {merging a contiguous run}, text align=fit to path,
  pre length=2em, post length=2em},decorate}]
    (block7) -- ($(cblock7.north)!.5!(cblock7.south)$);

MWE

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Rotate a node but not its content: the case of the ellipse decoration

[Tex/LaTex] TikZ: Text along path

Related Question