How do I get rid of the small lines between cells in a table?

Question

I'm trying to make a table with the first column and row as colored, but the rest of the cells in white. Though it works almost as expected, there's a thin white line between some cells that should be merged I'd love to get help removing them.

Here's the code I have so far:

\documentclass[10pt]{iopart}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\usepackage{multirow}
\usepackage{hhline}
\begin{document}
\begin{table*}
    \begin{tabular}{p{3cm}p{5.25cm}p{5.25cm}}
        \rowcolor{black}
      &\multicolumn{1}{c}{\textbf{\color{white}Title A}} & \multicolumn{1}{c}
      {\textbf{\color{white}Title B}} \\
    \cellcolor{black}\textbf{\color{white}Foo A }
        &amp;   X
        &amp;   Y \\ \hhline{~--}   

    \cellcolor{black} &amp; X &amp; Y\\
    \cellcolor{black}&amp; X&amp; Y\\
    \multirow{-3}{*}{\cellcolor{black}\color{white}Foo B}&amp; X&amp; Y\\ \hhline{~--} 

    \cellcolor{black}\textbf{\color{white}Foo C} 
        &amp;   X 
        &amp;   Y\\
    \cellcolor{black}
     &amp;  &amp;   Y \\
    \cellcolor{black}
     &amp;  &amp;   Y \\
\end{tabular}
\caption{Caption.}

\end{table*}
\end{document}

It looks like this:

Foo A (Row 2) needs no changing.

Foo C (Rows 6-8) I want to get rid of the white spacing connecting the three rows.

Foo B (Rows 3-5) was my attempt at using a solution I found in this similar question I thought might help by using multirows. Apart from not removing the white line between the cells, it also centers the "Foo B" text vertically, which I don't want.

Ideally, I would like the result to look like this (but with Foo B at the top of its rows):

Thanks!

the colortbl package explicitly documents that it is incompatible with \cline. You could use hhline to draw the rules or use a more modern package such as tabularray which uses different mechanisms to colour the cells. — David Carlisle, Feb 03 '22 at 20:16
Sure, switched to hhline, the problem remains the same though? — EnigmaticBacon, Feb 03 '22 at 22:34

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 04 '22 at 02:00

2

Package tabularray makes better tables with clean code:

\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\begin{document}
\begin{table}
  \begin{tblr}{
    colspec = {p{3cm}p{5.25cm}p{5.25cm}},
    row{1} = {bg=gray2,fg=white,c},
    column{1} = {bg=gray2,fg=white,font=\bfseries},
  }

                           & Title A & Title B \

                     Foo A & X       & Y       \\hline
    \SetCell[r=3]{h} Foo B & X       & Y       \ 
                           & X       & Y       \
                           & X       & Y       \\hline
    \SetCell[r=3]{h} Foo C & X       & Y       \
                           & X       & Y       \
                           & X       & Y       \\hline
  \end{tblr}
  \caption{Caption}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Inside \SetCell command, r=3 is for mulitrow, and h is for vertical alignment.

answered Feb 04 '22 at 02:00

L.J.R.

10,932

Thanks!! Any idea how to download tabularray? I've been trying to follow that link all day, but it keeps saying the server is down? – EnigmaticBacon Feb 04 '22 at 07:38
1

@EnigmaticBacon If you are using TeXLive 2021 or MikTeX 2021, you only need to update it to get latest tabularray package (see https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/55437/how-do-i-update-my-tex-distribution). – L.J.R. Feb 04 '22 at 07:59
1

@EnigmaticBacon If you are using an older TeX distribution, you can download these two files from their github repositories: https://github.com/lvjr/tabularray/raw/main/tabularray.sty https://github.com/lvjr/ninecolors/raw/main/ninecolors.sty – L.J.R. Feb 04 '22 at 08:03
I'm using Overleaf. I'm not sure what version of TeX that is :) – EnigmaticBacon Feb 04 '22 at 08:15
1

@EnigmaticBacon Then you may download the above two files and put them into your project folder on Overleaf. – L.J.R. Feb 04 '22 at 08:18
I now get Package Tabulararray Error: your LaTeX release is too old – EnigmaticBacon Feb 04 '22 at 21:10
Let us continue this discussion in chat. – EnigmaticBacon Feb 04 '22 at 21:17
1

@EnigmaticBacon You need to change texlive version to 2021 on Overleaf: https://www.overleaf.com/blog/new-feature-select-your-tex-live-compiler-version – L.J.R. Feb 04 '22 at 23:14

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 20 '23 at 09:55

Here is a code with the classical package colortbl (loaded by the key table of the package xcolor) which gives a good output.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\begin{document}
\arrayrulecolor{orange}
\begin{table*}
\sffamily
\begin{tabular}{>{\columncolor{black}\color{white}}w{l}{3cm}w{l}{5.25cm}w{l}{5.25cm}}
    \rowcolor{black}
          & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\color{white}Title A} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\color{white}Title B} \
    Foo A & X & Y \ \cline{2-3}
    Foo B & X & Y \
          & X & Y \
          & X & Y \ \cline{2-3}
    Foo C & X & Y \
          &   & Y \
          &   & Y \
\end{tabular}
\caption{Caption.}
\end{table*}
\end{document}

However, there are some thin white lines in the black panels (it depends of the PDF viewer: with PDF.js, used for instance by Firefox, they are usually present).

The package nicematrix has tools to address that problem.

Form the previous code, I will now:

load nicematrix (and unload colortbl);
replace {tabular} by {NiceTabular};
add the key color-inside (alias: colortbl-like) to say that there are instructions of color in the array itself (and not in so-called \CodeBefore provided by nicematrix).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{nicematrix}
\begin{document}
\arrayrulecolor{orange}
\begin{table*}
\sffamily
\begin{NiceTabular}{>{\columncolor{black}\color{white}}w{l}{3cm}w{l}{5.25cm}w{l}{5.25cm}}[color-inside]
    \rowcolor{black}
          & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\color{white}Title A} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\color{white}Title B} \
    Foo A & X & Y \ \cline{2-3}
    Foo B & X & Y \
          & X & Y \
          & X & Y \ \cline{2-3}
    Foo C & X & Y \
          &   & Y \
          &   & Y \
\end{NiceTabular}
\caption{Caption.}
\end{table*}
\end{document}

Here is the output (once again copied from Firefox).

How do I get rid of the small lines between cells in a table?

2 Answers2