The braids Library

This is the official home of the development repository for the braids library. This library enables drawing of braid diagrams with PGF/TikZ using a simple syntax. The braid itself is specified by giving a word in the braid group, and there are many options for styling the strands and for drawing “floors”.

This library was previously published as a separate LaTeX package but since version 2.0, it has been reimplemented as a TikZ library. If starting with a fresh document, please consider using the new library instead.

The published version of this is available on CTAN, or wherever you get your LaTeX packages from (such as TeXLive).

Usage

To use this development version:

• Download the files braids_code.dtx and braids.tex.
• To generate the library files, run tex braids_code.dtx.
• To generate the documentation, run pdflatex braids.tex.

The generated file tikzlibrarybraids.code.tex must be in the same directory with the tex file that uses this library. (Alternatively, specify some other way that tex uses this version of the library instead of the one included with your tex installation.)

Tests and Examples

The file braid_pic.tex in the tests directory contains many examples of using the library. To compile these examples, clone this repository or download that file and run the commands pdflatex tests/braid_pic.tex from the root directory of this repository.