Itemize in tabular: spurious vertical whitespace around items

Question

I have an itemize list inside a p table cell, and end up with unwanted vertical whitespace space before and after the list:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
I don't want the extra vertical space preceding the bulleted list:
\begin{tabular}{p{4cm}p{4cm}}
   \begin{itemize}
   \item hello
   \end{itemize}
   &
   hello
\end{tabular}

I want something more like:
\begin{minipage}{4cm}
   \begin{itemize}
   \item hello
   \end{itemize}
\end{minipage}
%
\begin{minipage}{4cm}
   hello
\end{minipage}
\end{document}

What's the simplest/most idiomatic way to avoid this?

Edit: prepending the itemize environment with \vspace{-\baselineskip} works. Is this the best way to do it?

see https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/501182/itemize-in-tabularx-how-to-remove-new-line-before-items — Zarko, Dec 12 '19 at 17:10
Thanks - didn’t find that one (tabular vs tabularx, I guess). Renamed my question to make the connection more explicit. — Roly, Dec 12 '19 at 17:20
In the given link is not the point tabularx but definition of column type. It can be p{...} too! I will show you in my answer (asap)! — Zarko, Dec 12 '19 at 18:41

Sveinung · Answer 1 · 2019-12-12T18:57:08.907

The simplest and most effective way to avoid the extra space, is to redirect a @minipagetrue into the column by defining a special column, as demonstrated by @egreg in this answer. I.e. you load the package array, define a new column type using redirection. Of course you may add other commands to the redirection, for example alignment, font attributes, etc.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{enumitem}
\makeatletter
\newcolumntype{P}[1]{>{\@minipagetrue}p{#1}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
I don't want the extra vertical space preceding the bulleted list:

\begin{tabular}{P{4cm}p{4cm}}
   \begin{itemize}
   \item hello
   \end{itemize}
   &
   hello
\end{tabular}

I want something more like:

\begin{minipage}{4cm}
   \begin{itemize}
   \item hello
   \end{itemize}
\end{minipage}
%
\begin{minipage}{4cm}
   hello
\end{minipage}
\end{document}

Zarko · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-12T19:17:13.867

if only the top vertical space is mater of concern, than solution provided by Ulrike 's answer can help you:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}

\begin{document}
I don't want the extra vertical space preceding the bulleted list:

\begin{tabular}{>{\csname @minipagetrue\endcsname}p{4cm}p{4cm}} % insert minipages in cells
\hline  % for seeing the top tables's border
   \begin{itemize}
   \item hello
   \item hello also in the next item
   \end{itemize}
   &    hello   \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

However, if you like to control more attributes of list in table, than you can do this by use of enumitem package and define new list, for example tabitem:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{enumitem}       
\newlist{tabitem}{itemize}{1}% <-- defined new list for use in tables
\setlist[tabitem]{nosep,     % <-- new list setup
                  leftmargin = *         ,
                  label      = $\bullet$ ,
                  after      = \vspace{-\baselineskip}
                     }

\begin{document}
I don't want the extra vertical space preceding the bulleted list:

\begin{tabular}{>{\csname @minipagetrue\endcsname}p{4cm}p{4cm}} % insert minipages in cells
\hline  % for seeing the top tables's border
   \begin{tabitem}
   \item hello
   \item hello also in the next item where is no space after end of list
   \end{tabitem}
   &    hello   \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

It may be handy, if you define new column type, for example

\newcolumntype{P}[1]{>{\csname @minipagetrue\endcsname\RaggedRight}p{#1}}

and than write:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{enumitem}       
\newlist{tabitem}{itemize}{1}% <-- defined new list for use in tables
\setlist[tabitem]{nosep,     % <-- new list setup
                  wide=0pt,  % <-- new "makeup" for list formatting
                             % see @Bernard's comment below
                  label      = $\bullet$ ,
                  after      = \vspace{-\baselineskip}
                     }
\usepackage{ragged2e}
\newcolumntype{P}[1]{>{\csname @minipagetrue\endcsname\RaggedRight}p{#1}}
\begin{document}
I don't want the extra vertical space preceding the bulleted list:

\begin{tabular}{P{4cm}p{4cm}} % insert minipages in cells
\hline  % for seeing the top tables's border
   \begin{tabitem}
   \item hello
   \item hello also in the next item where is no space after end of list
   \end{tabitem}
   &    hello   \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

where is also considered @Bernard comment regarding list formatting. Above MWE (Minimal Working Example) gives:

Note: definition

\newcolumntype{P}[1]{>{\csname @minipagetrue\endcsname}p{#1}}

is equivalent to definition:

\makeatletter
\newcolumntype{P}[1]{>{\@minipagetrue\RaggedRight}p{#1}}
\makeatother

Bernard, you are right. I was to much focused on vertical spaces :-(. I will add this possibilities to last example in answer (asap). — Zarko, Dec 12 '19 at 19:10
Thanks - I hadn’t noticed the additional trailing space, but on closer inspection I see it in my table, so this is my preferred answer. — Roly, Dec 12 '19 at 19:19

Itemize in tabular: spurious vertical whitespace around items

2 Answers2