[Tex/LaTex] Color of square cell in array

colortables

I would like to have array with square cells and fill cells with colors. There is done implementation of table with square cells by W. Robertson http://www.tug.org/pracjourn/2005-2/robertson/robertson.pdf :

\newlength\celldim \newlength\fontheight \newlength\extraheight
\newcounter{sqcolumns}

\newcolumntype{S}{ @{}
  >{\centering \rule[-0.5\extraheight]{0pt}{\fontheight + \extraheight}}
  p{\celldim} @{} }

\newcolumntype{Z}{ @{} >{\centering} p{\celldim} @{} }

\newenvironment{squarecells}[1]
  {\setlength\celldim{2em}%
  \settoheight\fontheight{A}%
  \setlength\extraheight{\celldim - \fontheight}%
  \setcounter{sqcolumns}{#1 - 1}%
  \begin{tabular}{|S|*{\value{sqcolumns}}{Z|}}\hline}
  % squarecells tabular goes here
  {\end{tabular}}

\newcommand\nl{\tabularnewline\hline}

So I write:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{report}

\usepackage[MeX]{polski}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{calc}
\newlength\celldim \newlength\fontheight \newlength\extraheight
\newcounter{sqcolumns}

\newcolumntype{S}{ @{}
  >{\centering \rule[-0.5\extraheight]{0pt}{\fontheight + \extraheight}}
  p{\celldim} @{} }

\newcolumntype{Z}{ @{} >{\centering} p{\celldim} @{} }

\newenvironment{squarecells}[1]
  {\setlength\celldim{4em}%
  \settoheight\fontheight{A}%
  \setlength\extraheight{\celldim - \fontheight}%
  \setcounter{sqcolumns}{#1 - 1}%
  \begin{tabular}{|S|*{\value{sqcolumns}}{Z|}}\hline}
  % squarecells tabular goes here
  {\end{tabular}}

\newcommand\nl{\tabularnewline\hline} 

\begin{document}

\begin{squarecells}{4}
\cellcolor{red}16 & 3 & 2 & 13 \nl
5 & 10 & 11 & 8 \nl
9 & 6 + 2 & 7 & 12 \nl
4 & 15 & 14 & 1 \nl
\end{squarecells}

\end{document}

Output is:

Output

Cell is filled with red color a little more than it should be. Question is, how to properly fill cell with color? Or maybe is there some other good solution to create table with square cells?

Best Answer

If you're not set on the array approach and would be okay with explicitly specifying the size of the squares, you could use TikZ for this. Based on the answer to the question TikZ matrix as a replacement for tabular, you could define a style that adjusts a TikZ matrix to have all the cells join each other and have identical heights and widths:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}

\tikzset{square matrix/.style={
    matrix of nodes,
    column sep=-\pgflinewidth, row sep=-\pgflinewidth,
    nodes={draw,
      minimum height=#1,
      anchor=center,
      text width=#1,
      align=center,
      inner sep=0pt
    },
  },
  square matrix/.default=1.2cm
}

\matrix[square matrix]
{
16 & 3 & 2 & 13 \\
5 & 10 &|[fill=yellow]| 11 & 8 \\
9 & 6 + 2 & 7 & 12 \\
4 & 15 & 14 & 1 \\
};

\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

tikz matrix with square elements

To adjust the size of the elements, use square matrix=<length>. To fill elements with different colours, use |[fill=<colour>]| in the cell you want to adjust.

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