Problem with custom vertical-alignment and/or length of lines/rules in tabular environment

Question

As a follow-up to my previous question: In my table / tabular,

\cline{1-1} gives me the correct vertical position but not the right horizontal length .
In contrast, \rule{\mycustomlength}{0.4pt} gives me the right (horizontal) length but not at the correct/desired vertical position.

How to solve? How to fine-tune? E.g. by adjusting

either the lenght of \cline
or the vertical position of \rule (but without introducing uneven line spacing further down ! )

Edit

Do not want to change tabular's column widths.
Do want to apply my custom length derived from a (randomly chosen) string, e.g. "blaaaaaa".

Here's a generic/random MWE:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\newlength{\mycustomlength}
\settowidth\mycustomlength{blaaaaaaaaa}

%\usepackage{booktabs}

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{ccc}
aaaaaa &bbbb &ccc\\
 \cline{1-1}
%%%%%
% The full syntax of the command is
% \cmidrule[ wd ]( trim ){a–b}
% \cmidrule[\mylength]{1-1}
dddd &e &f \\
\rule{\mycustomlength}{0.4pt}
\\
dddd &e &f \\
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Not sure what you're expecting with \rule{\mylength}{0.4pt}. It should be placed along the baseline of the context where it is called from. But you're not even calling it in your example. So not sure how to help you. — A.Ellett, Jul 07 '13 at 21:16
Also, I think you mean \setlength{\mylength}{0.4pt}. The way you've written it, you're setting \mylength to the length of 0.4pt as text, not as a measurement. — A.Ellett, Jul 07 '13 at 21:21
@A.Ellett You're right; corrected the MWE. Make more sense now ? — nutty about natty, Jul 07 '13 at 21:25
\rule... is not the same thing as an \hrule or \cline. The tabular environment sees the \rule... as something that inhabits a cell in your table. — A.Ellett, Jul 07 '13 at 21:28

David Carlisle · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-18T21:43:13.433

6

You can just use the definition of cline but patched to add a fixed length rule.

enter image description here

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\newlength{\mycustomlength}
\settowidth\mycustomlength{blaaaaaaaaa}

%\usepackage{booktabs}

\makeatletter
\def\mycline#1{\expandafter\my@cline\@cline#1\@nil}

\def\my@cline#1\leaders#2\hfill{%
#1\hfill\leaders#2\hskip\mycustomlength\hfill\kern\z@}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{ccc}
aaaaaa &bbbb &ccc\\
 \cline{1-1}
dddd &e &f \\
\rule{\mycustomlength}{0.4pt}
\\
dddd &e &f \\
\mycline{1-1}
dddd &e &f \\
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

edited Mar 18 '17 at 21:43

answered Jul 07 '13 at 21:48

David Carlisle

757,742

How would you work a similar patch for \cmidrule? – A.Ellett Jul 07 '13 at 21:52
@A.Ellett well cmidrule wiill be a leaders as well somewhere so you could just patch it the same way although probably I wouldn't bother and instead just adjust the vertical spacing in this one to be less like cline (which adds no space between the rows, so can over-print content) – David Carlisle Jul 07 '13 at 21:59
@DavidCarlisle Tried adding \usepackage[table]{xcolor} but somehow this seem to be conflicting with the above customization... Any ideas how to reconcile 'em ? – nutty about natty Jul 08 '13 at 07:18
@DavidCarlisle found a work-around / answer here: adding \PassOptionsToPackage{table}{xcolor} before \documentclass{article}. – nutty about natty Jul 08 '13 at 07:24
I tried to use \arrayrulecolor{blue} (using your colortbl pkg) like so \arrayrulecolor{blue}\mycline{1-1} but that threw an error (undefined control sequence w.r.t. \arrayrulecolor). Any way to add colour to the custom 'mycline' ? – nutty about natty Jul 08 '13 at 07:43
My error might be here: \usepackage[framemethod=TikZ, xcolor=RGB,table]{mdframed}. Is that a correct way of loading colortbl? That line at least doesn't throw an error... – nutty about natty Jul 08 '13 at 07:53
@nuttyaboutnatty \usepackage{colortbl} ? – David Carlisle Jul 08 '13 at 08:15
made it a separate question here: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/123071/how-to-color-my-custom-lines-rules-in-a-table-contained-by-mdframed – nutty about natty Jul 08 '13 at 08:15
In theory, mdframed should load xcolor which in turn should load colortbl... – nutty about natty Jul 08 '13 at 08:17

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 18 '17 at 21:43

You can make in your table a row of arbitrary height setting \arraystretch command to 0 before \begin{tabular}. However you will need to use \strut in every true row of your table to make its height right.

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\newlength{\mycustomlength}
\settowidth\mycustomlength{blaaaaaaaaa}

\begin{document}
    \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{0}
    \begin{tabular}{ccc}
        \strut aaaaaa &bbbb &ccc\\
        \hspace{-\arraycolsep}\rule{\mycustomlength}{0.4pt}\\
        \strut blaaaaaaaaa &e &f
    \end{tabular}
\end{document}

\hspace shifts line to the left border of the table. However if rule is longer than column, there would be a problem. To avoid it you can unite all columns in the fake row into one using multirow package.

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage{multirow}

\newlength{\mycustomlength}
\settowidth\mycustomlength{blaaaaaaaaa}

\begin{document}
    \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{0}
    \begin{tabular}{ccc}
        \strut aaaaaa &bbbb &ccc\\
        \multicolumn{3}{@{}l@}{\rule{\mycustomlength}{0.4pt}}\\
        \strut dddd &e &f
    \end{tabular}
\end{document}

Example images:

example

example 2

Welcome to TeX.sx! I added the images for you. – Torbjørn T. Jul 08 '13 at 06:28 — Torbjørn T., Jul 08 '13 at 06:28

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 18 '17 at 21:44

You could redefine the width of the cell. The \cline spans the length of the column and then some.

To start with you can try:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\newlength{\mycustomlength}
\settowidth\mycustomlength{blaaaaaaaaa}
\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{@{}c@{}cc}
aaaaaa & bbbb & ccc\\
 \cline{1-1}
blaaaaaaaaa & & \\
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

Here \cline will be exactly the width of the widest column in your table. However, there is not buffer between columns. Contrast this with:

\begin{tabular}{ccc}
aaaaaa & bbbb & ccc\\
 \cline{1-1}
blaaaaaaaaa & & \\
\end{tabular}

where you can see that the \cline is a bit wider than the longest text in the column.

If you want the buffer but you don't want the \cline to extend beyond the width of the widest text in the current column, then you can do something like:

\begin{tabular}{ccc}
aaaaaa & bbbb & ccc\\
\cmidrule(lr){1-1}
blaaaaaaaaa & & \\
\end{tabular}

Here's what these three options look like, enter image description here

Notice that \cmidrule adds some extra vertical spacing that \cline doesn't.

Not an option in my "real" (non-MWE) example. – nutty about natty Jul 07 '13 at 21:32 — nutty about natty, Jul 07 '13 at 21:32

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 08 '13 at 06:16

Of the two alternative routes to a solution to this problem, as outlined in my question above, David's solution addresses the former (adjusting the length of \cline) while egreg gave the key ingredient to the latter (adjusting the vertical position of \rule) elsewhere:

to use fractions of \normalbaselineskip

_{and not of \baselineskip, because this parameter is zeroed in a tabular environment.}

Since I want to end up with even spacing after the "rule intervention" (adding up the fractional line heights to give a whole number), this seems promising and doable, too.

Thanks egreg !

:-)

Problem with custom vertical-alignment and/or length of lines/rules in tabular environment

4 Answers4

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