sidenote

This is my submission for the Show Off Your Skillz in TeX & Friends Contest at TeX.sx.

Full LaTeX source and description coming soon below the picture.

% TypoTux
% Created by szantaii
% Compiled with pdflatex using TeX Live 2011
%
% Use it as you like, but please send me an e-mail if you do.

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{article}

% Specifying input encoding
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

% Using the TikZ library for drawing Tux, and clipping
\usepackage{tikz}

% Loaded for unnumbered captions
\usepackage{caption}

% For inserting lorem ipsum text
\usepackage{lipsum}

% Setting baselines smaller
\setlength{\baselineskip}{6pt}

\begin{document}

%\lipsum[1]

\begin{figure}[h!]
\centering
\begin{tikzpicture}[y=0.80pt,x=0.80pt,yscale=-1, inner sep=0pt, outer sep=0pt,scale=0.25]
\begin{scope}[shift={(-249.6684,-294.38903)}]
%\begin{scope}[cm={{0.55569,0.0,0.0,0.55569,(249.6684,292.4824)}}]
\begin{scope}

% Tux's path used for clipping
% Generated with Inkscape / http://inkscape.org/
% Using the inkscape2tikz extension / http://code.google.com/p/inkscape2tikz/
\path[clip] (265.5000,1063.0000) .. controls (252.9000,1061.0000) and
% Tux's path used for clipping cut from here because it's too long to include.
% See link for full compilable source at the end of the post.

% Adding lorem ipsum text using TikZ nodes, and the lipsum package
\node[inner sep=0,text width=10cm] (text1) at (450,450) {\LARGE\textit{\lipsum[1]}};
\node[inner sep=0,text width=10cm] (text1) at (500,500) {\LARGE\textit{\lipsum[2]}};
\node[inner sep=0,text width=10cm] (text1) at (450,450) {\textit{\lipsum[3-4]}};
\node[inner sep=0,text width=10cm] (text1) at (500,500) {\textit{\lipsum[5-6]}};
\node[inner sep=0,text width=10cm] (text2) at (450,450) {\scriptsize\textit{\lipsum[7-11]}};
\node[inner sep=0,text width=10cm] (text2) at (475,475) {\scriptsize\textit{\lipsum[12-16]}};
\node[inner sep=0,text width=10cm] (text2) at (500,500) {\scriptsize\textit{\lipsum[17-21]}};
\end{scope}
\end{scope}
\end{tikzpicture}

\caption*{TypoTux}
\end{figure}

%\lipsum[2]

\end{document}

I have always wanted to create something like this. After I read about this contest I decided to make a Tux who’s drawn by text. I chose TikZ & PGF for this purpose since it’s very powerful, and I used it several times before for path clipping.

Step-by-step description how I made this:

1. Grabbed a 2D vectorized Tux image from Wikipedia.
2. Removed colored and unnecessary white paths from the image, resized page with Inkscape.
3. Saved the black & white image as a standalone TikZ image with Inkscape using the inkscape2tikz extension.
4. Removed some unnecessary paths from the tex source file, changed path filling to clipping.
5. Added nodes filled with different size of lorem ipsum text using the lipsum package. Note: this was the hardest part, because there was no other way but trying to place the text under the clip path.
6. A little bit of fancying, and cleaning up.

Use it for whatever you want to, but please let me know if you do. I compiled it with pdflatex using TeX Live 2011.

Full compilable source