Software For Creating Commutative Diagrams

Question

I am aware of various latex packages (e.g., XYPic) that facilitate the creation of commutative diagrams in the context of latex documents. What I would like to ask though is whether there exists a stand-alone tool that creates these diagrams? An optimal tool would not require a huge number of libraries and supporting infrastructure that must be installed separately. Just a simple tool that creates commutative diagrams and, say, exports them to PNG/WMF etc. Does something like this exist?

To be clear, I am looking for special-purpose software that is dedicated to depicting commutative diagrams of the sort that one encounters in category theory, homological algebra, algebraic toplogy and so forth. I am not seeking a general-purpose chart drawing tool such as Visio, Powerpoint or other typical consumer-oriented application. It should be capable of correctly formatting and rendering math-specific symbols and character sets.

Answer 1

Dia can do this. The results won't be as good as with LaTeX + TikZ though. There are online LaTeX compilers that allow you to compile code including TikZ pictures. This way you can have the quality of LaTeX+TikZ without needing all of the tooling installed. If you concern is learning the language instead of output and you would prefer something with a GUI frontend then Dia is the only option I am familiar with (except for Visio and PowerPoint)

Answer 2

There are a couple of simple visual editors for creating commutative diagrams that you can use through your browser. See:

• tikcd-editor
• quiver

Both allow you to create diagrams by making straightforward selections from your mouse pointer. The diagrams can be exported as $\LaTeX$ code (which uses the tikz-cd package). If you wish, you can get a link to your diagram to share it with others, too.