How to place arrows horizontally above/below a table?

Question

I am trying to draw arrows next to a table like this:

I was able to draw vertical arrows using the technique shown here:

$\left.
  \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
    \hline medium & high & high \\
    \hline low & medium & high \\
    \hline low & low & medium \\
    \hline
  \end{tabular}
\right\uparrow
\rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{Impact}$

However I have no idea how to draw the horizontal arrow on top of the table. This answer seems to use the same technique to draw horizontal arrows but I was unable to adapt it. It should also be possible to use TikZ but I would like to keep it simple.

https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/487732/134144 might also be useful. — leandriis, Oct 22 '20 at 18:19
Hi and welcome. Do the answers to this question help you solve your problem? Annotating a table with arrows — AndréC, Oct 22 '20 at 19:09

Bernard · Answer 1 · 2021-01-13T21:29:35.057

Just with xrightarrow:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{amsmath, amssymb}
\usepackage{bigstrut}
\usepackage{array, rotating, cellspace}
\setlength{\cellspacetoplimit}{6pt}
\setlength{\cellspacebottomlimit}{6pt}
\begin{document}
$\xrightarrow[%
  \left.\begin{tabular}{|*{3}{>{\sffamily}Sc|}}
    \hline medium & high & high \
    \hline low & medium & high \
    \hline low & low & medium \
    \hline
  \end{tabular}%
  \enspace \right\uparrow\hskip-1em\rlap{\hskip 1.25em\rotatebox[origin=c]{90}{\sffamily Impact}}]
{\textsf{\normalsize Likelihood}\bigstrut} $
\end{document}

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 13 '21 at 17:27

It's been a while since you asked for this but I just stumbled on it.
Since you asked for a tikz solution, here's a simple one.

\documentclass[border=10pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\def\spc{7pt} % Space between array and arrows, adjuts the arrows length automatically
\tikzset{myarrow/.style={-stealth,shorten >=\spc, shorten <=\spc}}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[inner sep=\spc] (t)
    {
    \begin{tabular}{|*{3}{c|}}
    \hline medium &amp; high &amp; high \\
    \hline low &amp; medium &amp; high \\
    \hline low &amp; low &amp; medium \\
    \hline
    \end{tabular}
    };

\draw[myarrow] (t.north west) -- (t.north east) node[midway,above] {Likelihood};
\draw[myarrow] (t.south east) -- (t.north east) node[midway,below,sloped] {Impact};

\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

This solution is clean and simple. Thanks. – DurandA Jan 13 '21 at 17:30 — DurandA, Jan 13 '21 at 17:30

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 11 '21 at 10:23

Here is a solution with {NiceTabular} of nicematrix and Tikz.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{nicematrix,tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{NiceTabular}{ccc}[hvlines,first-row,last-col,cell-space-limits=6pt]
\Cdots[line-style={solid,->}]^{\text{Likelihood}} \
medium & high & high 
& \Vdots[line-style={xshift=3mm,solid,<-}]^{\text{Impact}} \
low & medium & high \
low & low & medium \
\end{NiceTabular}
\end{document}

You need several compilations (because nicematrix uses PGF/Tikz nodes).

How to place arrows horizontally above/below a table?

3 Answers3