Adding Vectors with Head-to-Tail Addition: What Software to Use?

[Jameson]

I'm currently writing a test where my students will need to add two vectors using head-to-tail addition. I don't know how to draw vectors in LaTeX and the guides I've found have been quite tedious. I also considered doing it in Microsoft Paint, but it looks terrible. Any ideas on what software to use or how best to do this in LaTeX?

I've even found sites like this and this which are helpful but not exactly what I want.

 

[Jameson]

Well it seems it is in fact easy enough to do in LaTeX. This will work nicely:

\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw[->,thick](0,0) -- (13,3);
\draw[->,thick](3,4) -- (2,-2);
\end{tikzpicture}

 

[Evgeny.Makarov]

Yes, TikZ is the drawing tool I know better than others by far, so I would use it too. It helps that it produces excellent quality drawings.

Here are some other things I found helpful.

\usetikzlibrary{arrows}
\begin{tikzpicture}[>=stealth',scale=2] % changes the arrowheads and scale
\draw (1,1) -- +(30:5); % a segment at 30 degrees of length 5 starting from (1,1)
\end{tikzpicture}

Version 3.0 of TikZ has a much expanded arrows library, but I have not got to reading it yet. :(