tikz.dev

Start with “Tutorial: A Picture for Karl’s Students.” It is the first beginner-paced tutorial in the online PGF/TikZ manual on tikz.dev, and it is designed to teach the basics of drawing with TikZ without requiring you to read the full thousand-page manual first. After that, work through the Petri-net tutorial, then use the “TikZ Design Principles” chapter and the coordinate/path sections as your follow-up reference.

Why start with the tutorials instead of the full manual

The manual itself says the wealth of TikZ options “is often daunting to beginners,” and that the documentation “comes with a number of slowly-paced tutorials that will teach you almost all you should know about TikZ without your having to read the rest.” That is the key point for a beginner: the tutorials are not a supplement to the manual — they are the intended entry path.

The manual also answers the basic “What is TikZ?” question directly: it defines TeX commands that draw graphics. Two examples given in the documentation:

\tikz \draw (0pt,0pt) -- (20pt,6pt);

draws a line, and

\tikz \fill[orange] (1ex,1ex) circle ...

draws a filled orange circle. Seeing these one-line examples is a useful sanity check that TikZ is a command-based drawing language, not a separate application.

The beginner tutorial sequence

The manual lists four tutorials. Read them in this order:

For a beginner, tutorials 1 and 2 cover the core workflow: specify coordinates, draw paths, and place nodes and edges. Tutorials 3 and 4 extend that into specific diagram types and can be read when you need them.

Follow-up reading after the tutorials

Once the tutorials are done, the manual points to these sections as the natural next layer:

• TikZ Design Principles — explains how TikZ is structured, which helps you predict where commands and options live.
• Specifying Coordinates — the coordinate systems behind every path.
• Path Specifications and Actions on Paths — how paths are described and what you can do to them (draw, fill, clip, and so on).
• Arrows, Nodes and Edges — the elements used in almost every real diagram.

The manual’s quick links also surface frequently used commands — \node, \fill, \draw, \foreach, color, circle, arc, grid, rectangle, label, edge, anchor, clip — which are worth skimming as a vocabulary list while you work through the tutorials.

Practical way to use the site

1. Open the tutorial page and type the example code into a LaTeX document, compiling with pdfLaTeX as the manual’s own examples do.
2. Change one parameter at a time (a coordinate, a color, a line width) and recompile to see the effect.
3. When a tutorial introduces a command you do not recognize, jump to its section via the quick links rather than reading sequentially.
4. Treat the library chapters (shapes, arrows, circuits, trees, graphs) as a catalog to consult when a specific diagram type comes up, not as required reading.

Common sticking points

• Trying to read the manual front to back. The documentation explicitly warns against needing to; the tutorials are the shortcut.
• Skipping the coordinate section. Most early confusion comes from not knowing how positions are specified, so read “Specifying Coordinates” soon after tutorial 1.
• Version confusion. The online manual is an unofficial HTML version of the PGF/TikZ documentation, updated 2026-10-09 for version 3.1.12, maintained by Dominik Peters and produced with the lwarp package; Till Tantau is the documentation editor. If your installed TeX distribution ships a different version, check command behavior against your local version when something does not compile as shown.

If you're new to Ahrefs and want to run your first SEO audit, the fastest path is: open Site Explorer, enter your target URL, review the Overview for a health snapshot, then dig into Organic Keywords, Top Pages, and Site Audit to find specific problems. From there, build a short prioritized to-do list instead of trying to fix everything at once.

This tutorial walks through that workflow using a realistic starting scenario, explains what the numbers mean, and shows how to turn findings into actions.

Before You Start: Pick a Narrow Scope

A common beginner mistake is auditing an entire large website on day one. The reports become overwhelming, and you can't tell which issues matter.

Instead, choose one of these starting points:

• A single important page (your homepage or a key product/service page)
• A small site (under ~50 pages, e.g., a personal blog or small business site)
• One section of a bigger site (e.g., /blog/)

For this tutorial, assume you're auditing a small business site with about 30 pages. The same steps scale up later.

You'll need an Ahrefs account to follow along. Ahrefs offers paid plans, and pricing and feature limits change over time, so check the current Pricing page for what's included in each tier before committing.

Step 1: Enter Your Target in Site Explorer

Site Explorer is Ahrefs' core tool for analyzing any website or URL.

1. Open Site Explorer from the top navigation.
2. In the search box, paste your domain (e.g., example.com).
3. Choose the Exact URL or Domain mode depending on scope. For a full-site view, use Domain or Prefix; for a single page, use Exact URL.
4. Press Enter.

You'll land on the Overview report. Don't try to absorb everything — focus on four numbers first.

Reading the Overview Snapshot

Important caveat: Ahrefs' traffic and keyword numbers are estimates based on its own data. They won't match Google Search Console or your analytics exactly. Treat them as directional, not absolute.

Step 2: See What You Already Rank For

Go to Organic Keywords in the left sidebar. This shows queries where your site appears in search results.

Sort by Traffic (descending) to see which pages bring the most estimated visitors. Then look for:

• Keywords ranking in positions 4–15 — these are often the easiest wins. A small content or on-page improvement can push them onto page one.
• Keywords with high volume but low position — potential opportunities if the topic is relevant.
• Irrelevant keywords — if you rank for something off-topic, it may signal thin or mismatched content.

Write down 5–10 of the position 4–15 keywords. These become your first optimization targets.

Step 3: Find Your Best and Weakest Pages

Open Top Pages. This ranks your URLs by estimated organic traffic.

Look for two things:

1. Your top performers — understand what topics and formats work. Can you create more content like this?
2. Pages with traffic but poor rankings — these may need on-page fixes (title, headings, internal links).

If a page gets zero traffic and targets a topic you care about, it's a candidate for a rewrite or consolidation.

Step 4: Run a Technical Site Audit

Now move to Site Audit. This crawls your site and flags technical and on-page issues.

1. Click Site Audit → New project.
2. Enter your domain and set crawl settings (default is usually fine for a small site).
3. Start the crawl and wait for it to finish.

Once complete, you'll see a Health Score and a list of issues grouped by category.

Which Issues to Fix First

Not all issues are equal. Prioritize in this order:

Ignore low-impact warnings (like minor meta description length) until the big items are handled.

Step 5: Turn Findings Into a To-Do List

You now have raw data. Convert it into a short, actionable list. Example:

1. Fix 3 broken links found in Site Audit.
2. Rewrite title tags on 5 pages with duplicate titles.
3. Improve 4 pages ranking in positions 6–12 by adding missing subtopics and internal links.
4. Remove or update 2 thin pages with no traffic.

Keep the list to 5–10 items max for your first audit. Finishing a short list beats starting a long one.

Common Beginner Mistakes

• Chasing every red flag. Site Audit flags many minor issues. Fix what affects rankings and users first.
• Trusting estimates as exact numbers. Ahrefs data is modeled, not measured from your analytics.
• Auditing a huge site too early. Start small to learn the interface.
• Ignoring search intent. A page can be technically perfect but still fail if it doesn't match what searchers want.
• Forgetting to re-crawl. After fixes, run Site Audit again to confirm improvements.

Where to Go Next

Once your first audit is done:

• Compare with competitors using Site Explorer's Competing Domains and Content Gap reports.
• Track keyword rankings over time with Rank Tracker.
• Explore backlink opportunities in the Backlinks and Link Intersect reports.
• Set up recurring Site Audit crawls so new issues surface automatically.

Your first audit isn't about perfection — it's about building a repeatable habit: enter a target, read the key reports, pick the highest-impact fixes, and act. Do that once a month and your site's health compounds.

On tikz.dev, the fastest route to a specific command is the Quick Links row near the top of the manual page: it lists \node, \fill, \draw, \foreach, plus concepts such as color, circle, arc, grid, rectangle, label, edge, anchor, and clip, each linking straight to its section. For a library, scan the chapter list further down the page, where libraries are grouped by topic (for example Circuit, Automata, Calendar, Mindmap, Petri-Net, Shadings, and Graph Drawing). Use the Quick Links when you already know the command name; use the chapter structure when you know the task but not the command.

Starting from a command name

The Quick Links are the manual's own shortcut index, so they reflect how the documentation is organized rather than a separate search tool.

1. Open the manual page and locate the Quick Links line under the heading.
2. Find your command or concept in the list.
3. Follow the link to land in the corresponding section of the HTML manual.

Expected result: you arrive at the section that defines the command, with its syntax and options. If a command is not in Quick Links, it is usually covered inside a broader chapter, so move to the table of contents.

Starting from a library or a task

Libraries appear as their own chapters in the manual's contents, named after what they draw or do. The page lists, among others:

Open the chapter, then use its internal headings to reach the exact environment or key.

Using the tutorials when you do not know the command

If you know the picture you want but not the syntax, the manual's tutorials are the intended entry point. The documentation states that the tutorials teach almost everything you need without reading the rest of the manual. They are listed as:

• Tutorial: A Picture for Karl's Students
• Tutorial: A Petri-Net for Hagen
• Tutorial: Euclid's Elements
• Tutorial: Diagrams as Simple Graphs

Each tutorial builds a complete picture step by step, so a command you see there can be traced back to its reference section. For example, if you need to draw a simple line, the manual's own illustration is \tikz \draw (0pt,0pt) -- (20pt,6pt);, and filling a circle is shown as \tikz \fill[orange] (1ex,1ex) circle ... — both point you to the \draw and \fill entries in Quick Links.

Practical tips and common sticking points

• Version matters. The page identifies the manual as updated 2026-10-09 for Version 3.1.12, and notes it is an unofficial HTML version produced with the lwarp package, maintained by Dominik Peters, with Till Tantau as editor of the PGF/TikZ documentation. If a command behaves differently from what you expect, check that the section you are reading matches your installed version.
• Command vs. concept. Quick Links mix commands (\node, \draw) with concepts (anchor, clip, label). If a link takes you to a conceptual section, the concrete syntax is usually nearby in the same chapter.
• Libraries must be loaded. A library chapter documents what the library provides; the manual's library chapters are the place to confirm the library name before adding it to your document.
• When a search fails. Fall back to the table of contents and read chapter titles as task descriptions — the manual is organized by what you draw, so "Circuit Library" or "Calendar Library" is often faster than guessing a command name.

The manual runs to over a thousand pages, and the documentation itself notes that the wealth of options can be daunting to beginners — which is why the Quick Links and the slow-paced tutorials exist as the two intended ways in.

No — tikz.dev is an unofficial HTML rendering of the official PGF/TikZ manual. The content originates from the official documentation (edited by Till Tantau, with contributions from other authors), but the HTML version itself is maintained by Dominik Peters and generated with the lwarp package. For most reading and reference purposes it is a faithful, convenient copy; for authoritative citation or version-critical work, verify against the official source.

What the page itself states

The manual's opening page is explicit about its status:

• Title: "TikZ and PGF Manual"
• Version line: "Updated 2026-10-09 – Manual for Version 3.1.12"
• Status label: "Unofficial HTML Version"
• Maintainer: Dominik Peters, produced using the lwarp package
• Documentation editor: Till Tantau; parts written by other authors as indicated in those chapters and in Section 1.5

So the text is the official manual; the HTML edition is a third-party conversion. That distinction matters if you are quoting version numbers, reporting documentation errors, or need the canonical PDF.

What tikz.dev offers

The site presents the full manual in browsable HTML form, including:

• Tutorials paced for beginners: "A Picture for Karl's Students," "A Petri-Net for Hagen," "Euclid's Elements," and "Diagrams as Simple Graphs"
• Core reference chapters: specifying coordinates, path specifications, actions on paths, arrows, nodes and edges, pics, graphs, matrices and alignment, trees, function plots, transparency, decorations, transformations, and animations
• Libraries: 3D drawing, angles, automata, calendar, circuits, decorations, fitting, matrix, mindmap, paper-folding, patterns, three-point perspective, Petri nets, shadings, shadows, shapes, and spy
• Graph drawing and data visualization sections, including layouts (trees, layered, force-based, circular, phylogenetic) and axes/visualizers
• Quick links to frequently used commands such as \node, \fill, \draw, \foreach, color, circle, arc, grid, rectangle, label, edge, anchor, and clip

The manual describes TikZ as a set of TeX commands that draw graphics directly with pdfLaTeX, now grown into a full graphics language with a manual of over a thousand pages. The introduction notes that the breadth of options can be daunting to beginners, which is why the slow-paced tutorials exist.

When to use it, and when to check elsewhere

Practical checks before relying on a page

1. Read the version banner first. If your local TeX distribution ships a different PGF version, an option documented here may not exist yet — or may behave differently.
2. Cross-check syntax against a minimal example. The manual's own examples are the fastest verification: compile a short snippet such as \tikz \draw (0pt,0pt) -- (20pt,6pt); and confirm the output matches the description.
3. Note the HTML conversion caveat. Because the site is generated with lwarp, occasional rendering artifacts in code samples or cross-references are possible; if something looks broken, compare with the PDF manual for the same version.

In short: treat tikz.dev as a reliable, well-organized reading copy of the official manual — just don't describe it as the official publication itself.

TikZ is a graphics package for TeX and LaTeX that defines TeX commands for drawing pictures directly inside your document, so the figures are typeset by the same engine as your text rather than imported from an external image file. It sits on top of the lower-level PGF system, works with pdfLaTeX, and has grown from a small style file into a full graphics language documented in a manual of over a thousand pages (Version 3.1.12, per the online manual at tikz.dev). Use it when you want vector diagrams—lines, shapes, nodes, graphs, plots—whose fonts, sizes, and positioning stay consistent with the surrounding LaTeX document.

The relationship in one sentence

LaTeX is the document preparation system; TeX is the typesetting engine underneath it; PGF is the graphics layer that computes and renders drawing commands; and TikZ is the friendly front-end syntax you actually write. When you type a TikZ command, it is translated into PGF-level operations, which in turn become drawing instructions in the PDF that pdfLaTeX produces.

What a TikZ command actually does

TikZ commands are ordinary TeX commands, which is why they can appear anywhere LaTeX accepts text or a box. The manual's own first example is a single line:

\tikz \draw (0pt,0pt) -- (20pt,6pt);

This yields a straight line from one coordinate to another. A second example fills a circle:

\tikz \fill[orange] (1ex,1ex) circle (1ex);

Two things are worth noticing. First, the coordinates use TeX units (pt, ex), so a picture scales with your document's font metrics rather than with pixels. Second, the syntax is declarative: you describe the path ("from here to there", "a circle at this point") and TikZ handles the drawing.

For anything beyond a one-liner, you normally wrap the code in a tikzpicture environment:

\begin{tikzpicture}
  \draw (0,0) -- (2,1);
  \fill[orange] (1,1) circle (0.5);
\end{tikzpicture}

Why it is tied so closely to LaTeX

Because TikZ output is generated by the TeX engine, labels inside a picture use the same fonts, math mode, and macros as the rest of your document. You can write $x^2$ on a node and it is typeset exactly like body math. This is the main practical difference from exporting a figure from a separate drawing tool: there is no font mismatch and no separate file to keep in sync.

The manual describes the project's origin as a small LaTeX style for creating graphics in Till Tantau's PhD thesis directly with pdfLaTeX—which is why pdfLaTeX compatibility is a baseline assumption rather than an add-on.

What the manual covers, and where to start

The online manual at tikz.dev is an unofficial HTML rendering (maintained by Dominik Peters using the lwarp package) of the official documentation edited by Till Tantau. Its structure reflects how the package is meant to be learned:

• Tutorials first. The manual explicitly says the options are "often daunting to beginners" and that its slowly paced tutorials teach almost everything you need without reading the rest. The four listed are "A Picture for Karl's Students," "A Petri-Net for Hagen," "Euclid's Elements," and "Diagrams as Simple Graphs."
• Core language sections cover coordinates, path specifications, actions on paths, arrows, nodes and edges, pics, graphs, matrices and alignment, trees, function plots, transparency, decorations, transformations, and animations.
• Libraries extend the core for specific domains: circuits, automata, calendars, mindmaps, Petri nets, shadings, shadows, shapes, three-dimensional drawing, and more.
• Graph drawing and data visualization are treated as larger subsystems with their own layout algorithms (trees, layered, force-based, circular) and axis/legend tooling.

A sensible reading order for a new user is: one tutorial end to end, then the "Specifying Coordinates" and "Path Specifications" chapters, then the specific library matching your diagram type.

When TikZ is the right choice—and when it is not

TikZ fits well when a diagram must live inside a LaTeX document, when labels need document fonts or math, when the figure should be version-controlled as text, or when you need programmatic repetition (the \foreach utility is a core feature). It is a weaker fit for photographic content, for highly organic illustrations, or when a collaborator needs to edit the figure in a point-and-click tool.

If you are deciding between TikZ and an external drawing program, compare them on the same axes: font consistency with the document, editability by non-LaTeX users, reproducibility in version control, and the learning cost of the syntax. TikZ wins clearly on the first and third; external tools usually win on the second and, for complex artwork, on the fourth.