PRL style horizontal line in Latex
Here's an elementary, yet visually similar, approach:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx,lipsum}% http://ctan.org/pkg/{graphicx,lipsum}
\newcommand{\PRLsep}{\noindent\makebox[\linewidth]{\resizebox{0.3333\linewidth}{1pt}{$\bullet$}}\bigskip}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\PRLsep
\lipsum[2]
\end{document}
\PRLsep
is a scaled/flattened version of $\bullet$
- 1/3 of \linewidth
wide and 1pt
tall.
I extended the example. Now, you can write a text between the seperator. But it is not perfect. The length measurement of \blacktriangleleft
gives 7.7778pt, but this includes the white space arround it. So this space is also stretched. The calc-Package is required.
\newlength{\PRLlen}
\newcommand*\PRLsep[1]{\settowidth{\PRLlen}{#1}\advance\PRLlen by -\textwidth\divide\PRLlen by -2\noindent\makebox[\the\PRLlen]{\resizebox{\the\PRLlen}{1pt}{$\blacktriangleleft$}}\raisebox{-.5ex}{#1}\makebox[\the\PRLlen]{\resizebox{\the\PRLlen}{1pt}{$\blacktriangleright$}}\bigskip}
\PRLsep{Text}
With TikZ:
\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\newlength{\diamondrulelength}
\setlength{\diamondrulelength}{0.6\textwidth}
\newlength{\diamondrulethickness}
\setlength{\diamondrulethickness}{2pt}
\newcommand{\diamondrule}{\begin{center}\tikz{\fill[black] (0.5\diamondrulelength,0) -- (0,0.5\diamondrulethickness) -- (-0.5\diamondrulelength,0) -- (0,-0.5\diamondrulethickness) -- cycle;}\end{center}}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\diamondrule
\lipsum[1]
\end{document}