Commutative Diagrams in LaTeX

Overview

With my studies in category theory trundling along, I thought I’d take  moment to share some general resources for typesetting commutative diagrams in . I’ll outline below some of the better resources and recommendations I’ve found, most by much more dedicated and serious users than I. Following that I’ll list a few resources, articles, and writings on some of the more common packages that I’ve seen mentioned.

Naturally, just reading through some of the 20+ page user guides to some of these packages can be quite daunting, much less wading through the sheer number that exist.  Hopefully this one-stop-shop meta-overview will help others save some time trying to figure out what they’re looking for.

Feruglio Summary

Gabriel Valiente Feruglio has a nice overview article naming all the primary packages with some compare/contrast information. One will notice it was from 1994, however, and misses a few of the more modern packages including TikZ. His list includes: AMS; Barr (diagxy); Borceux; Gurari; Reynolds; Rose (XY-pic); Smith (Arrow); Spivak; Svensson (kuvio); Taylor (diagrams); and Van Zandt (PSTricks). He lists them alphabetically and gives brief overviews of some of the functionality of each.

Feruglio, Gabriel Valiente. Typesetting Commutative Diagrams.  TUGboat, Volume 15 (1994), No. 4

Milne Summary

J.S. Milne has a fantastic one-page quick overview description of several available packages with some very good practical advise to users depending on the level of their needs. He also provides a nice list of eight of the most commonly used packages including: array (LaTeX); amscd (AMS); DCpic (Quaresma); diagrams (Taylor); kuvio (Svensson); tikz (Tantau); xymatrix (Rose); and diagxy (Barr). It’s far less formal than Feruglio, but is also much more modern. I also found it a bit more helpful for trying to narrow down one or more packages with which to play around.

Milne, J.S. Guide to Commutative Diagram Packages.

Spivak Pseudo-recommendations

David Spivak, the author of Category Theory for the Sciences, seems to prefer XY-pic, diagXY, and TikZ based on his website from which he links to guides to each of these.

Resources for some of the “Bigger” Packages

Based on the recommendations given in several of the resources above, I’ve narrowed the field a bit to some of the better sounding packages. I’ve provided links to the packages with some of the literature supporting them.

Diagxy: Michael Barr

CTAN Package

Brief four page introduction

Barr, Michael. A new diagram package. (Version 2011-06-18)

XY-pic: Kristoffer Rose & Ross Moore

CTAN Package

XY-pic User Guide

Blaga, Paul A. Commutative Diagrams with XY-pic I. Kernel Functions and Arrows. The PracTEX Journal, Draft of November 16, 2006.

Diagrams: Paul Taylor

CTAN Package

Commutative Diagrams in TeX

Diagrams Manual

TikZ-CD: Florêncio Neves

CTAN  Package

TikZ-CD Package Documentation: {tikzcd} Commutative diagrams with TikZ. Version 0.9e; October 30, 2014.

Lenders, Felix. Commutative Diagrams using TikZ. April 12, 2012.

Is there a particular package you recommend? Feel free to add your thoughts, comments, and additional resources in the comments below.