What it does
Syntax homework, papers and slides need tree diagrams, and drawing them by hand in a slide program is slow. This tool turns labelled bracket notation into a neat tree as you type. Each phrase is written as a bracket that starts with its label, followed by its parts: [S [NP [D the] [N dog]] [VP [V barked]]]. The tree updates straight away, and you can download it as an SVG (sharp at any size, editable in Inkscape or Illustrator) or a PNG image, or copy LaTeX code for the forest or qtree packages.
It works well with the publication plot maker, the plasmid map viewer and editor and the interlinear gloss formatter.
How to use it
- Type or paste your tree in the box, or start from one of the examples.
- Words go straight inside the bracket of their label:
[N dog]. Several words in a row form one group:[NP the dog]puts “the dog” under NP. - Add the extras you need:
- Subscripts:
NP_iort_iwrites the i small and lowered. Use_{ij}for more than one letter. - Triangles:
[NP^ the old man](or[^NP …]) draws the words under a triangle, the usual way to skip the inside of a phrase. - Movement arrows: mark the landing site with
#1and the place the phrase came from with->1:[DP#1 what] … [DP t->1]. The arrow runs under the tree from the trace to the moved phrase. Use other numbers or letters (#2,#a) for more arrows. - Put a word in “double quotes” if it contains a bracket.
- Subscripts:
- Options: Movement arrows turns the arrows on or off; All words on one line lines the words up along the bottom, as many textbooks do; Fit to screen shrinks a wide tree to the page (untick it to scroll at full size); Text size sets the size of labels and words.
- Download the SVG or PNG, or pick forest or qtree and press Copy or Download .tex.
When the brackets do not match
The tool checks the brackets and tells you what is wrong in plain words, with the line and character: a ”[” that is never closed (with the count of ”[” and ”]” so you can see how many are missing), an extra ”]”, a bracket with no label, text after the tree has ended, an arrow ->k with no #k, or a landing site used twice. Press Show me where to jump to the spot in the box.
Worked example
The “Question with movement” example is
[CP [DP#1 what] [C' [C did] [TP [DP you] [T' [T ∅] [VP [V see] [DP t->1]]]]]]
The tool draws a tree with 11 phrases, 6 word groups and a depth of 6 levels, reads off the sentence “what did you ∅ see t”, and draws 1 arrow from the trace t under VP back up to “what” in the specifier of CP. In LaTeX the forest version names the two ends (name=t1 and name=s1x1) and adds \draw[->] (s1x1) to[out=south, in=south] (t1); after the tree. The ∅ sign becomes $\emptyset$.
Tips
- Labels can be anything: X-bar labels like
N'orV', labels with brackets in “quotes”, such as["T[+past]" will], or Merge-style labels. - Keep the tree on one line or spread it over many lines with indents; spaces and line breaks do not matter.
- For a handout, untick Fit to screen to see the true size, then download the SVG.
FAQ
Does it check that my tree is grammatical? No. It draws whatever structure you write; whether the analysis is right is up to you and your framework.
Why are there no arrows in the qtree version? The qtree package cannot draw them. Use forest (with \usepackage[linguistics]{forest}), which can.
Is my sentence sent anywhere? No. Everything is drawn in your browser.
Where the numbers come from
- Notation: the labelled bracketing used across syntax textbooks; LaTeX output follows the documented syntax of the forest and qtree packages. Example sentences written for this tool.
Standard scientific values, such as constants, atomic weights and melting points, are facts found in every textbook; we name where ours were checked. If you are an author or publisher and want a value, a credit or a table changed or removed, tell us and we will act quickly.
Last updated 2026-11-09.