tikz add tag
CarLaTeX
Why doesn't `anchor=north west` work here?

What am I doing wrong?


```
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw] (first) {First node};
\node[draw, anchor=north west,
    below= of first.south east] {Why not correctly anchored?};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
```

![image.png](/image?hash=779c56ea82b7a536ac227f3207019bcd20600b90a7b91d416d80fa085765206b)
Top Answer
Skillmon
The reason is that the `below=of` syntax of the `positioning` library implicitly uses `anchor` for the positioning.

If you want to use `anchor` you have to use it after the `positioning` syntax, but generally you can reach the same result by using the correct positioning. For instance `[below=of <node>.south east, anchor=north west]` is the same as `[below right=of <node]`:

```
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{positioning}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw] (first) {First node};
\node[draw,
    below right= of first.south east] {Why not correctly anchored?};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
```

![anchorbelow-1.png](/image?hash=1fce01d256366d3744f97519263ec8dff34389709709aef93dbbf6c77563fb05)

If you want to move the node to start exactly below the east-edge of the first node you can either change the `node distance` (has to be used before the `positioning` keys):

```
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw] (first) {First node};
\node[draw, node distance=1cm and 0pt
    ,below right= of first.south east] {Why not correctly anchored?};
\end{tikzpicture}
```

![anchorbelow-1.png](/image?hash=666d5bc0612cd5b295ecbcc89e7ab4eadd8e4c9d91bf351924f9300071d3ecac)

Or you position the nodes manually (could as well use the `calc` library and the `\node at (<coordinate>)` syntax):

```
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[draw] (first) {First node};
\path (first.east) ++(0,-1cm)
  node[draw, anchor=north west] {Why not correctly anchored?};
\end{tikzpicture}
```

![anchorbelow-1.png](/image?hash=85c5e98be533807e30369d91a042a57820ea3354d6becd7bce8e1eec8d8a86e2)

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