Vertical whitespace inside tikz node

Question

I have a tikz node that looks like this:

enter image description here

It was generated using the following code:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[align=center]{%
Tableau 0\\
\smallskip

\begin{tabular}{ll}TEXT\\TEXT\end{tabular}
};%
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

You can see that the \smallskip was ignored. I suspect the problem was that TeX was not in the right mode -- vertical mode?

I thought I would get around the problem by wrapping the 'Tableau 0' and \\smallskip in a vertical-mode box. But unfortunately, it looks like all of those boxes require you to specify their width (cf. What are the different kinds of boxes in (La)TeX? ), and I would need something that stretches to the width of its content.

What's the easiest way to insert the whitespace here?

Do you need a table header inside the node? Two nodes or a matrix node would avoid this naturally. — percusse, Jan 20 '13 at 20:07
I've been experimenting and two nodes worked well once I found out about 'north'. — Mohan, Jan 20 '13 at 20:10
Why do you want insert a \smallkip there anyway? Do you want to fix the tight spacing between Tableau 0 and the first line in the tabular environment? Then I’d suggest you try Tableau 0\\\begin{tabular}[t]{ll}TEXT\\TEXT\end{tabular} (notice the [t]). — Qrrbrbirlbel, Jan 20 '13 at 22:22
@Mohan I’m just saying. The output of \\\\[\smallskipamount] and \\\begin{tabular}[t] seem very similar. I would even combine both methods if you want an additional (more than the normal baseline skip) between the caption and the first line of the tabular. — Qrrbrbirlbel, Jan 20 '13 at 22:41

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 20 '13 at 19:36

3

Instead of Tableau 0\\ \smallskip, use Tableau 0\\[1cm], or whatever distance you want.

answered Jan 20 '13 at 19:36

Gutierrez PS

397

4

Well, I’d suggest \\[\smallskipamount] to get the same skip that \smallskip produces (or \\\\[\smallskipamount to get that of \\\smallskip). – Qrrbrbirlbel Jan 20 '13 at 22:13
@Qrrbrbirlbel I didn't know that. Thanks ;) – Gutierrez PS Jan 20 '13 at 22:26

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 10 '20 at 12:32

Two ways I can think of are:

Use a \parbox
Use the varwidth environment.

enter image description here

Notes:

\parbox does require a specification of the width so may not be preferable.
Even though varwidth requires you to specify the width, that specification is the maximum width. The actual width is just the natural width of the content. So that is why in the MWE it is specified as \linewidth, some amount that you know is sufficiently large.
A \bigskip was used in the MWE to make the spacing more obvious.

Code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{varwidth}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[align=center]{\parbox{2cm}{%
Tableau 0\
\par\bigskip
\begin{tabular}{ll}TEXT\TEXT\end{tabular}
}};%
\end{tikzpicture}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[align=center]{\begin{varwidth}{\linewidth}%
Tableau 0\
\par\bigskip
\begin{tabular}{ll}TEXT\TEXT\end{tabular}
\end{varwidth}};%
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Vertical whitespace inside tikz node

2 Answers2

Notes:

Code: