Tabular border style

Question

\begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
Column 1 & Column 2 & column3 \\
\hline
second row & & \\
\hline
\end{tabular}

How do I change the border style? Using | I can draw thin solid vertical lines and \hline draws thin solid horizontal lines. I would like a thick outer border and thin dotted lines of various sizes and colors in the table. In short I would like to achieve similar functionality of attached screenshot of MS word table options in LaTeX. Also the reason for asking this is to put all table borders related answers in one place.

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Here are a few table layouts, with my favourite one last.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\begin{document}
    \begin{tabular}{p{6cm}p{6cm}}
        \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
        \hline
        Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
        \hline
        second row & & \\
        \hline
        third row & & \\
        \hline
        \end{tabular}
        &
        \begin{tabular}{ccc}
        Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
        \hline
        second row & & \\
        \hline
        third row & & \\
        \hline
        \end{tabular}
        \\[5em]
        \begin{tabular}{|ccc|}
        \hline
        Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
        \hline
        second row & & \\
        third row & & \\
        \hline
        \end{tabular}
        &
        \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|}
        \hline
        Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
        \hline
        second row & & \\
        third row & & \\
        \hline
        \end{tabular}
        \\[5em]
        \begin{tabular}{ccc}
        Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
        second row & & \\
        third row & & 
        \end{tabular}
        &
        \begin{tabular}{lll}
        \toprule
        Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
        \midrule
        second row & & \\
        third row & & \\
        \bottomrule
        \end{tabular}
        \\[5em]
        % Colour for the rulings in tables:
        \makeatletter
           \def\rulecolor#1#{\CT@arc{#1}}
           \def\CT@arc#1#2{%
           \ifdim\baselineskip=\z@\noalign\fi
           {\gdef\CT@arc@{\color#1{#2}}}}
           \let\CT@arc@\relax
          \rulecolor{gray!50}
        \makeatother
        \begin{tabular}{@{}lll@{}}
        \toprule
        Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
        \midrule
        second row & & \\
        third row & & \\
        \bottomrule
        \end{tabular}
       &
        \begin{tabular}{@{}lll@{}}
        \toprule
        Column 1 & Column 2 & Column 3 \\
        \cmidrule(r){1-1}\cmidrule(lr){2-2}\cmidrule(l){3-3}
        second row & & \\
        third row & & \\
        \bottomrule
        \end{tabular}
   \end{tabular}
\end{document}

Answer 2

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array,booktabs,arydshln,xcolor}
\newcommand\VRule[1][\arrayrulewidth]{\vrule width #1}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{!{\VRule[2pt]}c!{\VRule}c!{\color{red}\VRule[3pt]}c!{\VRule}}
Column 1 & Column 2 & column3 \\\specialrule{3pt}{0pt}{0pt}
second row & & \\\hdashline
third row  & & \\\specialrule{4pt}{0pt}{0pt}
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

Answer 3

There is the hhline package and the arydshln package. You can get colour in the table with the xcolor package.

You might have your reasons to typeset your tables with many different line styles... I'd usually recommend to avoid vertical lines at all and to draw horizontal lines with commands provided by the booktabs package.

In case you are writing something related to science, more or less all textbooks seem to roughly follow similar guidelines. Rarely you will find a vertical line.

Answer 4

An alternative solution with tblr environment of tabularray package:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularray}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\begin{document}
\begin{tblr}{|[2pt,cyan3]c|[dashed,purple3]c|[dotted]c|[2pt,cyan3]}
\hline[2pt,cyan3]
Column 1   & Column 2 & column3 \
\hline[purple3,dashed]
Second Row & Alpha    & Beta \
\hline[dotted]
Third Row  & Gamma    & Delta \
\hline[2pt,cyan3]
\end{tblr}
\end{document} 

Answer 5

With nicematrix, you have an environment {NiceTabular} constructed upon {tabular} (of array).

• You can use the classical tools provided by array for the rules.

• You can use the classical packages which apply to the tabulars of LaTeX (eg: aryshln for dashed rules).

• {NiceTabular} has a built-in command \hdottedline and a letter : for dotted rules (with dots which are true circles).

• In fact, nicematrix creates PGF/Tikz nodes under the cells, columns and rows of the environment, and so, it's possible to use Tikz to draw whatever rule you want (with the styles of Tikz).

However, you need several compilations (because nicematrix uses PGF/Tikz nodes).

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{nicematrix}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\begin{NiceTabular}{|c:c|}
\hline
A & B \
\hdottedline
C & D \
\hline
\end{NiceTabular}
\bigskip
\begin{NiceTabular}{ccc}
A & B & C \
E & F & G \
H & I & J
\CodeAfter
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw [dotted] (1-|1) -- (1-|4) ;
\draw [loosely dashed] (2-|1) -- (2-|4) ;
\draw [dash dot dot] (3-|1) -- (3-|4) ;
\draw [red, thick] (4-|1) -- (4-|4) ;
\draw [dotted] (1-|1) -- (4-|1) ;
\draw [loosely dashed] (1-|2) -- (4-|2) ;
\draw [dash dot dot] (1-|3) -- (4-|3) ;
\draw [red, thick] (1-|4) -- (4-|4) ;
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{NiceTabular}
\end{document}

Answer 6

You can use all the flexibility permitted by LaTeX:

\usepackage{arydshln}
...

\begin{table}[h]
\begin{tabular}{lll}
\multicolumn{1}{c}{\textbf{Title 1}} &  & \multicolumn{1}{c}{\textbf{Title 2}} \\
\cline{1-1} \cline{3-3}
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Cell 1} & & \multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Cell 2} \\
\cdashline{3-3}
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Cell 3} & & \multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Cell 4} \\
\cline{3-3}
\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Cell 5} & & \\
\cline{1-1}
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

The result is: