Ykhjuy

How to scale down the size of tick (j-1, j and j+1) of a graph in Tikz?

Moreover, as I don't have a lot of experience with Tikz, if there is a more standard/efficient way of writing the whole graph, I'm obviously glad to learn!

I obtained this graph by modifying a an example that I found on Texample.net

documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{book}

usepackage{pgfplots, tikz}

begin{document}

begin{tikzpicture}[scale = 0.7]

% Draw axes

draw [<->,thick] (0,5) node (yaxis) [above] {$y$}

|- (5,0) node (xaxis) [right] {$x$};



coordinate (c) at (2,2);

fill[red] (c) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- c) node[left] {$i$}

-| (xaxis -| c) node[below] {$j-1$};



coordinate (d) at (3,2);

fill[red] (d) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- d) node[left] {$i$}

-| (xaxis -| d) node[below] {$j$};



coordinate (d) at (3,3);

fill[red] (d) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- d) node[left] {$i+1$}

-| (xaxis -| d) node[below] {$j$};



coordinate (d) at (4,2);

fill[red] (d) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- d) node[left] {$i$}

-| (xaxis -| d) node[below] {$j+1$};



draw [thin, gray] (0,0) grid (5,5);

end{tikzpicture}

end{document}

I put some opacity in the grid. In my opinion, they should also put the red dots in the foreground to hide the dotted lines that invade the dots. But I don't know if you want this.

documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{book}

usepackage{pgfplots, tikz}

begin{document}

begin{tikzpicture}[scale = 0.7]

% Draw axes

draw [<->,thick] (0,5) node (yaxis) [above] {$y$}

|- (5,0) node (xaxis) [right] {$x$};



coordinate (c) at (2,2);

fill[red] (c) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- c) node[left] {}

-| (xaxis -| c) node[below] {$scriptstyle{j-1}$};



coordinate (d) at (3,2);

fill[red] (d) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- d) node[left] {$scriptstyle{i}$}

-| (xaxis -| d) node[below] {};



coordinate (d) at (3,3);

fill[red] (d) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- d) node[left] {$scriptstyle{i+1}$}

-| (xaxis -| d) node[below] {$scriptstyle{j}$};



coordinate (d) at (4,2);

fill[red] (d) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- d) node[left] {}

-| (xaxis -| d) node[below] {$scriptstyle{j+1}$};



draw [thin, gray] (0,0) grid (5,5);

end{tikzpicture}

end{document}

If you don't mind that x and y will also become smaller, you could just use a smaller font size, e.g. by using scriptsize before the tikzpicture. This will also avoid the problem, that scaling elements that contain text will result in a suboptimal choice of letter shapes (see Why not scale elements that contain text for more information).

Another small problem: you print the labels for i and j three times above each other, depending on the rendering precision of your pdf viewer this can cause the font to look awkward, better only print it one time.

documentclass[a4paper, 12pt]{book}

usepackage{pgfplots, tikz}

begin{document}

{

scriptsize

begin{tikzpicture}[scale = 0.7]

% Draw axes

draw [<->,thick] (0,5) node (yaxis) [above] {$y$}

|- (5,0) node (xaxis) [right] {$x$};



coordinate (c) at (2,2);

fill[red] (c) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- c) node[left] {}

-| (xaxis -| c) node[below] {$j-1$};



coordinate (d) at (3,2);

fill[red] (d) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- d) node[left] {}

-| (xaxis -| d) node[below] {};



coordinate (d) at (3,3);

fill[red] (d) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- d) node[left] {$i+1$}

-| (xaxis -| d) node[below] {$j$};



coordinate (d) at (4,2);

fill[red] (d) circle (3pt);

draw[dashed] (yaxis |- d) node[left] {$i$}

-| (xaxis -| d) node[below] {$j+1$};



draw [thin, gray] (0,0) grid (5,5);

end{tikzpicture}

}

end{document}