In history-books you often have timeline, where events and periods are marked on a line in the correct relative distance to each other. How is it possible to create something similar in LaTeX? Zoe Gagnon The tikz package seems to have what you want. \documentclass{article} \usepackage{tikz} \usetikzlibrary{snakes} \begin{document} \begin{tikzpicture}[snake=zigzag, line before snake = 5mm, line after snake = 5mm] % draw horizontal line \draw (0,0) -- (2,0); \draw[snake] (2,0) -- (4,0); \draw (4,0) -- (5,0); \draw[snake] (5,0) -- (7,0); % draw vertical lines \foreach \x in {0,1,2,4,5,7} \draw (