This fun little essay 1 describes how the two interlocking toothed gears shown in the above figure were modelled and typeset using the TikZ graphics typesetting system together with my pkTikZ L^AT_EX package.

As a subsystem of the T_EX typesetting system, TikZ makes it possible to draw—or should I say write— vector-based graphical content directly inside a T_EX document. The advantage TikZ offers to a technical writer is that textual, mathematical and graphical content may be brought together under what is essentially a single typesetting regime. The disadvantage is that because TikZ, T_EX (and L^AT_EX) are programmatic in nature, they can be difficult to work with.

In this essay, then, I record some of my own work with TikZ and L^AT_EX in the hope that it may serve as a reference piece for others who, like me, find TikZ and L^AT_EX challenging yet fun to work with. In this essay, I also demonstrate the use of my pkTikZ package. pkTikZ is a simple LATEX package package which encapsulates my local style and command definitions for TikZ. These definitions have helped to maintain aesthetic consistency across many TikZ pictures.

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1. 1 I declare this to be my own work, entirely. In particular, no AI was used in any research, analysis, synthesis, writing, nor typesetting of this work. In short, AI was not recruited at any time in this work. Errors and inaccuracies are therefore proudly my own.

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