How can I put some white space between consecutive bigdelim braces in tabular, without inserting space between rows?

Question

In one column of a table (using the tabular environment), I have consecutive braces created using the bigdelim package, as in the following:

&\rdelim\}{3}{60pt}[\ S--S--L]
&
&
&\rdelim\}{2}{60pt}[\ L--L]
&

I dislike that the tips of these braces touch, and I want to introduce some white space, but I do not want to introduce extra space between any of the rows.

I tried using a non-integer value (e.g. \rdelim}{2.8} etc.) but evidently that doesn't work. Having read the multirow documentation, I thought it might. I am using MikTeX and apparently my version of multirow was packaged in May 2004.

If there is an easy solution to this, I would love to hear it. I don't particularly want a complicated workaround. Thanks!

Answer 1

It looks like you're trying something like

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{multirow,bigdelim}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
    1&\rdelim\}{3}{60pt}[\ S--S--L]\\
    2& \\
    3& \\
    a&\rdelim\}{2}{60pt}[\ L--L] \\
    b& \\
\end{tabular} 
\end{document}

which produces

You can fix this using multirow and manually stretching the brace using a \rule to fill space,

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{multirow}
\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
    1&\multirow{3}{*}[1pt]{$\left.\rule{0cm}{0.65cm}\right\}$ S--S--L}\\
    2& \\
    3& \\
    a&\multirow{2}{*}[1pt]{$\left.\rule{0cm}{0.4cm}\right\}$ L--L} \\
    b& \\
\end{tabular} 
\end{document}

to get

This method requires some tweaking to make it look right. The [1pt] option of \multirow sets the "fixup", which tweaks the vertical position. The size of the rule must also be adjusted by hand. The brace height seems to only change in steps, so getting the desired appearance can be tricky.

I tried adjusting the braces using \delimitershortfall and \delimiterfactor, but these seem only capable of increasing the brace size.

I also tried using EASYBMAT to create the table, as this allows better control of spacing in different columns. This worked, but is far more difficult to implement.

Another option would be using \big{, \Big{, \bigg{, etc., to manually adjust the brace size, but this seems less flexible than the approach described above.

Interestingly, the bigdelim documentation states, with regards to the rows nover which the brace should cover:

If there are unusually tall rows you may have to enlarge n (you can use non-integral values).

But, in practice, trying this throws an error. It certainly would be a useful feature.