Why is parskip zero inside a tabular?

Question

I wonder why \parskip is zero inside the tabular environment.

How can i make the paragraphs to be equally vertically spaced inside the tabular environment, just like outside the tabular?

I know about \@parboxrestore and \@minipagerestore, but could not find a reference to fix this inside \begin{tabular}.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{array}
\setlength{\parindent}{0mm}
\setlength{\parskip}{8pt}
\begin{document}
\textbf{par inside tabular}
\begin{tabular}{|>{\raggedright}p{8cm}|}
\hline 
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\par{}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\par{}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\tabularnewline
\hline 
\end{tabular}
\textbf{par outside tabular}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\par{}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\par{}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\end{document}

Leads to the following result:

Related Question: Why is \parskip zero inside a minipage?. – Peter Grill Nov 21 '15 at 06:50 — Peter Grill, Nov 21 '15 at 06:50

John Kormylo · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-21T05:23:26.817

4

Actually, minipage and \parbox reset \parskip to 0pt, so you will have to reset it inside. While in this case we know \parskip=8pt, in general that will not be true.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{array}
\setlength{\parindent}{0mm}
\setlength{\parskip}{8pt}
\newlength{\oldparskip}

\begin{document}

\textbf{par inside tabular}

\oldparskip=\parskip
\begin{tabular}{|>{\raggedright\parskip=\oldparskip}p{8cm}|}
\hline 
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\par
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\par
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\tabularnewline
\hline 
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

edited Nov 21 '15 at 05:23

answered Nov 20 '15 at 17:13

John Kormylo

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\let\myparskip\parskip will not save the value of \parskip. One can definitely have more than one paragraph in a \parbox, why not? – egreg Nov 20 '15 at 17:17
@egreg - Thanks, learn something every day. When I used \parbox in the revised solution, \par did nothing, although it works fine outside tabular. – John Kormylo Nov 20 '15 at 17:38
Thanks but it seems that this solution causes some new problems - in your screenshot you see the first and last line are offset and collide with the table border. Is there some way to achieve without using parbox or minipage? – Kaii Nov 20 '15 at 22:02
why use a minipage here rather than just a normal p column? – David Carlisle Nov 21 '15 at 00:41
2

>{\begin{minipage}{8cm}\raggedright\parskip=8pt}{c}<{\end{minipage}} could more simply (and better vertical spacing) be >{\raggedright\parskip=8pt}p{8cm} – David Carlisle Nov 21 '15 at 00:48
@David Carlisle - If I had known it would be that simple,I wouldn't have bothered. – John Kormylo Nov 21 '15 at 01:03

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 21 '15 at 00:40

A p column is essentially identical to a \parbox. In both cases they use \@arrayparboxrestore to normalise several things. If you don't want parskip and parindent normalized but left as in the main document just redefine the command not to reset them:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{array}
\setlength{\parindent}{0mm}
\setlength{\parskip}{8pt}

\makeatletter
\def\@arrayparboxrestore{%
  \let\if@nobreak\iffalse
  \let\if@noskipsec\iffalse
  \let\par\@@par
  \let\-\@dischyph
  \let\'\@acci\let\`\@accii\let\=\@acciii
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%  \parindent\z@ \parskip\z@skip
  \everypar{}%
  \linewidth\hsize
  \@totalleftmargin\z@
  \leftskip\z@skip \rightskip\z@skip \@rightskip\z@skip
  \parfillskip\@flushglue \lineskip\normallineskip
  \baselineskip\normalbaselineskip
  \sloppy}
\makeatother
\begin{document}

\textbf{par inside tabular}

\begin{tabular}{|>{\raggedright}p{8cm}|}
\hline 
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\par
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\par
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\tabularnewline
\hline 
\end{tabular}

\textbf{par outside tabular}

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\par{}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
\par{}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

\end{document}

While this is the technically most correct and most generic answer, i prefer the other solution. I wonder if overwriting \@arrayparboxrestore may cause new problems, i.e. with packages that depend on their own version of \@arrayparboxrestore. — Kaii, Nov 24 '15 at 18:17
@Kali I would be inclined to do something like \NewCommandCopy{\old@arrayparboxrestore}{\@arrayparboxrestore} followed by \RenewDocumentCommand{\@arrayparboxrestore}{}{\old@arrayparboxrestore\parskip 8pt} which would alleviate your concerns. — Don Hosek, Jul 29 '21 at 00:34

Why is parskip zero inside a tabular?

2 Answers2

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