Drawing arrows as background under table text (tikz or other solution)

Question

I want a background arrow in a column of text to show a propagating effect.

I tried using tikzmark and tikz, but the arrow overwrites the text, and tikz opacity doesn't play nice with regular text.

\documentclass[a6paper]{article}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{graphicx,colortbl,booktabs,environ,hhline}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc,arrows}
\begin{document}
\pagestyle{empty}
\newcommand{\tikzmark}[1]{%
    \tikz[overlay,remember picture] \node (#1) {};}

\begin{table}
    \centering
    \resizebox{0.5\columnwidth}{!}{%    
    \newcommand{\bluecells}{\cellcolor{blue!08!white}\textcolor{black}}
    \newcommand{\greencells}{\cellcolor{green!10!white}\textcolor{purple!3!black}}
    \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.4}
    \setlength{\extrarowheight}{1.2pt}
    \begin{tabular}{m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}}
        \hskip1ex & A & G\tikzmark{a} & X & G & R   \\\hhline{~-----}
%row 1
        A & A &A &A &A &A   \\
%row 2      
        A &A &A &A &A   \\
%row 3
        A &A &A &A &A   \\
%row 4
    A &A & XX\tikzmark{b} & A & A & A   \\
%row 5
        A & A & A & A & A   \\
    \end{tabular}

\tikz[overlay,remember picture] \draw[-triangle 45,draw=green!20!white,line width=5pt,fill opacity=0.2] ($(a.south)+(-.2,-.3)$) -- ($(b.south)+(-.4,-.1)$);
    }

\end{table}
\end{document}

I'd like to avoid redoing my tables in tikz just to get the arrow, because I have to convert them all. If I could somehow convince tikz to draw under the text, or even better to have the table redraw a second time over the whole thing, that would fix the problem.

Also, if anyone has a better suggestion than a background arrow to show propagating effects, I'd love to know. However, I have to do rows and colums, and make a sort of weave out of things, since sometimes the effects (arrows) cross over one another. Tikz will have no trouble doing that, if I can get it to play nice.

I'd recomment to not use resizebox on a tabular environment as it weill lead to inconsistenz and sometimes extremely small font sizes. Instead, I'd change the column widths. — leandriis, Oct 03 '19 at 16:03

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 03 '19 at 16:05

3

What I can offer is a solution that draws the arrow in the background: eso-pic. (BTW, fill opacity is not the right key here.) However, your \resizebox screws things up, including the positioning mechanisms of TikZ. So I dropped it.

\documentclass[a6paper]{article}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{graphicx,colortbl,booktabs,environ,hhline}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{arrows,tikzmark}
\usepackage{eso-pic}
\begin{document}
\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{table}
    \centering
    %\resizebox{0.5\columnwidth}{!}{%    
    \newcommand{\bluecells}{\cellcolor{blue!08!white}\textcolor{black}}
    \newcommand{\greencells}{\cellcolor{green!10!white}\textcolor{purple!3!black}}
    \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.4}
    \setlength{\extrarowheight}{1.2pt}
    \begin{tabular}{m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}}
        \hskip1ex & A & \tikzmarknode{a}{G} & X & G & R   \\\hhline{~-----}
%row 1
        A & A &A &A &A &A   \\
%row 2      
        A &A &A &A &A   \\
%row 3
        A &A &A &A &A   \\
%row 4
    A &A & \tikzmarknode{b}{XX} & A & A & A   \\
%row 5
        A & A & A & A & A   \\
    \end{tabular}%}

\AddToShipoutPictureBG*{%
\tikz[overlay,remember picture] 
\draw[-triangle 45,draw=green!20!white,line width=5pt] 
(a.south) -- ([yshift=-1em]b.south-|a);
    }

\end{table}
\end{document}

answered Oct 03 '19 at 16:05

That looks like what I want, but I can't get it to build. It draws the table without the arrow and complains. Any problems with pdflatex? The specific error is: ! Undefined control sequence. l.18 \hskip1ex & A & \tikzmarknode {a}{G} & X & G & R \\hhline{~-----} Any attempt to fix the code leads to everything becoming an undefined control sequence. There's no apparent reason for this complaint. – Guido Oct 03 '19 at 18:33
@Guido Most likely you have an over-a-year-old TeX installation. \tikzmarknode was only added in 2018 to the tikzmark library. If you cannot update your TeX installation, you could use \tikznode from here instead of \tikzmarknode. – Oct 03 '19 at 18:40
I decided to overlay the regular non-tikz table on top of the tikz annotated table. That accomplishes background. I just use a \vbox{\hbox{}\vspace{}\hspace{}\hbox}} structure. It mostly works, but I'm noticing that tikz does something to the box size. It renders at a different x position, and spacing of things seems to be a little off. The overlay isn't perfect. Is this a known bug with Tikz? – Guido Oct 04 '19 at 03:22
@Guido Well, without seeing an explicit example I am very hesitant to say there is a bug. That said, the above table is extremely easy to do with TikZ "only". – Oct 04 '19 at 04:46
I'm debating doing it. Thanks. – Guido Oct 04 '19 at 13:16
Also, the "bug" I mentioned with rendering is in my PDF rendering app. Because I'm drawing the same thing on top of itself, sometimes as low magnification, the PDF rendering is an issue, but at high mag it works great. So, the tikzmark isn't causing a problem. – Guido Oct 04 '19 at 14:49

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 05 '19 at 11:08

If you use the tikzmark tikz library then the coordinates defined by a tikzmark are available before they are defined in the document. The float and resizebox are a bit of a pain, but by putting the arrow command inside both but before the table then I get what I think you want.

\documentclass[a6paper]{article}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{graphicx,colortbl,booktabs,environ,hhline}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{calc,arrows,tikzmark}
\begin{document}
\pagestyle{empty}


\begin{table}
    \centering
   \resizebox{0.5\columnwidth}{!}{%    
\tikz[overlay,remember picture] \draw[-triangle 45,draw=green!20!white,line width=5pt,fill opacity=0.2] ($(pic cs:a)+(-.2,-.3)$) -- ($(pic cs:b)+(-.4,-.1)$);
    \newcommand{\bluecells}{\cellcolor{blue!08!white}\textcolor{black}}
    \newcommand{\greencells}{\cellcolor{green!10!white}\textcolor{purple!3!black}}
    \renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.4}
    \setlength{\extrarowheight}{1.2pt}
    \begin{tabular}{m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}m{1.5cm}}
        \hskip1ex & A & G\tikzmark{a} & X & G & R   \\\hhline{~-----}
%row 1
        A & A &A &A &A &A   \\
%row 2      
        A &A &A &A &A   \\
%row 3
        A &A &A &A &A   \\
%row 4
    A &A & XX\tikzmark{b} & A & A & A   \\
%row 5
        A & A & A & A & A   \\
    \end{tabular}

 }

\end{table}
\end{document}

Drawing arrows as background under table text (tikz or other solution)

2 Answers2