plantuml

A LuaLaTeX package for PlantUML in LaTeX

PlantUML is a program which transforms text into UML diagrams. This package allows for embedding PlantUML diagrams using the PlantUML source.

Currently, this project runs with lualatex only. Check issue #1 for the current state of affairs for support pdflatex.

Preconditions

1. Environment variable PLANTUML_JAR set to the location of plantuml.jar. You get it from https://sourceforge.net/projects/plantuml/files/plantuml.jar/download.
2. Windows: Environment variable GRAPHVIZ_DOT set to the location of dot.exe. Example: C:\Program Files (x86)\Graphviz2.38\bin\dot.exe. You can install graphviz using choco install graphviz.
3. lualatex available with command line parameter -shell-escape included.
4. In case you want to have the images as PDFs (and not using TikZ or PNG), ensure that inkscape.exe and pdfcrop are in your path. You can get inkscape using choco install inkscape. pdfcrop should be part of your latex distribution.

Examples

Minimal Example

LaTeX source:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{plantuml}
\begin{document}
\begin{plantuml}
  @startuml
  Alice -> Bob: test
  @enduml
\end{plantuml}
\end{document}

Compilation: lualatex -shell-escape example-minimal

Result:

Example Class Relations Rendered Using SVG

LaTeX source:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{graphics}
\usepackage{epstopdf}
\epstopdfDeclareGraphicsRule{.svg}{pdf}{.pdf}{
  inkscape #1 --export-filename=\OutputFile
}
\usepackage[output=svg]{plantuml}
\begin{document}
\begin{plantuml}
@startuml
class Car

Driver - Car : drives >
Car *- Wheel : have 4 >
Car -- Person : < owns
@enduml
\end{plantuml}
\end{document}

For older Inkscape use this LaTeX source:

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{graphics}
\usepackage{epstopdf}
\epstopdfDeclareGraphicsRule{.svg}{pdf}{.pdf}{
  inkscape -z --file=#1 --export-pdf=\OutputFile
}
\usepackage[output=svg]{plantuml}
\begin{document}
\begin{plantuml}
@startuml
class Car

Driver - Car : drives >
Car *- Wheel : have 4 >
Car -- Person : < owns
@enduml
\end{plantuml}
\end{document}

Compilation: lualatex -shell-escape example-class-relations

Result:

Installation

Your latex distribution should take care.

For manual installation, copy plantuml.* to your local texmf folder in the subdirectoy tex/latex/plantuml. See the discussion at tex.sx for the concrete location of the folder on your system.

Development

The release is built using GitHub Actions (workflow file) using release.sh.

Release prepration:

1. Adapt copyright year (line 1) as well as date and version number (line 6) in plantuml.sty.
2. Adapt CHANGELOG.md.
3. Set a git tag and push.

Alternative Solutions

TikZ-UML is a very powerful package based on TikZ. More alternative solutions are collected at the CTAN topic UML.

License

SPDX-License-Identifier: LPPL-1.3c+