[Tex/LaTex] Making a thick vertical line in a table

tables

I have a table that needs some edits. First, I would like a thick vertical line separating the first column from the remaining four columns. Second, I want "Percentage of base in organism's DNA" typeset on two lines. Third, "Organism" should be centered among three rows – two for "Percentage of base in organism's DNA" and one for the row containing "adenine," "guanine," "cytosine," and "thymine."

Why are there three vertical bars on the left edge of the table? Why is the "||" missing in the second row along the right edge? If I wanted the data in the first column, excluding the word "Organism," to be aligned on the left edge, how would I modify the code?

\documentclass[10pt]{amsart}


\usepackage{makecell}
\usepackage{boldline}
\setcellgapes{3pt}


\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{0.0in}
\setlength{\evensidemargin}{0.0in} \setlength{\textwidth}{6.1in}
\setlength{\topmargin}{0.0in} \setlength{\textheight}{9in}



\begin{document}

\makegapedcells
\begin{tabular}{||!{\vrule width0.8pt}c | c | c | c | c||} \hline
\multicolumn{5}{|| c ||}{\textbf{Base Composition of DNA}} \\ \hline
Organism        &\multicolumn{4}{|| c ||}{Percentage of base in organism's DNA} \\ \hline
                &   adenine     &   guanine &   cytosine    &   thymine \\ \hline
Maize           &   26.8\%      &   22.8\%  &   23.2\%      &   27.2\% \\ \hline
Octopus         &   33.2\%      &   17.6\%  &   17.6\%      &   31.6\% \\ \hline
Chicken         &   28.0\%      &   22.0\%  &   21.6\%      &   28.4\% \\ \hline
Rat             &   28.6\%      &   21.4\%  &   20.5\%      &   28.4\% \\ \hline
Human           &   29.3\%      &   20.7\%  &   20.0\%      &   30.0\% \\ \hline
Grasshopper     &   29.3\%      &   20.5\%  &   20.7\%      &   29.3\% \\ \hline
Sea urchin      &   32.8\%      &   17.7\%  &   17.3\%      &   32.1\% \\ \hline
Wheat           &   27.3\%      &   22.7\%  &   22.8\%      &   27.1\% \\ \hline
Yeast           &   31.3\%      &   18.7\%  &   17.1\%      &   32.9\% \\ \hline
{\em E. coli}   &   24.7\%      &   26.0\%  &   25.7\%      &   23.6\% \\ \hline
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

Best Answer

You can use V{...} for thicker vertical rules.

\documentclass[10pt]{amsart}

\usepackage{makecell}
\usepackage{boldline}
\setcellgapes{3pt}

\setlength{\textwidth}{6.1in}
\setlength{\textheight}{9in}
\calclayout

\begin{document}

\makegapedcells
\begin{tabular}{|| c V{3} c | c | c | c||} \hline
\multicolumn{5}{|| c ||}{\textbf{Base Composition of DNA}} \\ \hline
Organism        &\multicolumn{4}{ c ||}{Percentage of base in organism's DNA} \\ \hline
                &   adenine     &   guanine &   cytosine    &   thymine \\ \hline
Maize           &   26.8\%      &   22.8\%  &   23.2\%      &   27.2\% \\ \hline
Octopus         &   33.2\%      &   17.6\%  &   17.6\%      &   31.6\% \\ \hline
Chicken         &   28.0\%      &   22.0\%  &   21.6\%      &   28.4\% \\ \hline
Rat             &   28.6\%      &   21.4\%  &   20.5\%      &   28.4\% \\ \hline
Human           &   29.3\%      &   20.7\%  &   20.0\%      &   30.0\% \\ \hline
Grasshopper     &   29.3\%      &   20.5\%  &   20.7\%      &   29.3\% \\ \hline
Sea urchin      &   32.8\%      &   17.7\%  &   17.3\%      &   32.1\% \\ \hline
Wheat           &   27.3\%      &   22.7\%  &   22.8\%      &   27.1\% \\ \hline
Yeast           &   31.3\%      &   18.7\%  &   17.1\%      &   32.9\% \\ \hline
{\em E. coli}   &   24.7\%      &   26.0\%  &   25.7\%      &   23.6\% \\ \hline
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

Don't set \oddsidemargin, \evensidemargin and \topmargin; use \calclayout, with AMS classes.

Alternative code for breaking the long header into two lines and for removing the rule below “Organism”.

\begin{tabular}{|| c V{3} c | c | c | c||} \hline
\multicolumn{5}{|| c ||}{\textbf{Base Composition of DNA}} \\ \hline
Organism        & \multicolumn{4}{ c ||}{%
                    \begin{tabular}{@{}c@{}}
                    Percentage of base\\
                    in organism's DNA
                    \end{tabular}%
                  } \\ \cline{2-5}
                &   adenine     &   guanine &   cytosine    &   thymine \\ \hline
Maize           &   26.8\%      &   22.8\%  &   23.2\%      &   27.2\% \\ \hline
Octopus         &   33.2\%      &   17.6\%  &   17.6\%      &   31.6\% \\ \hline
Chicken         &   28.0\%      &   22.0\%  &   21.6\%      &   28.4\% \\ \hline
Rat             &   28.6\%      &   21.4\%  &   20.5\%      &   28.4\% \\ \hline
Human           &   29.3\%      &   20.7\%  &   20.0\%      &   30.0\% \\ \hline
Grasshopper     &   29.3\%      &   20.5\%  &   20.7\%      &   29.3\% \\ \hline
Sea urchin      &   32.8\%      &   17.7\%  &   17.3\%      &   32.1\% \\ \hline
Wheat           &   27.3\%      &   22.7\%  &   22.8\%      &   27.1\% \\ \hline
Yeast           &   31.3\%      &   18.7\%  &   17.1\%      &   32.9\% \\ \hline
{\em E. coli}   &   24.7\%      &   26.0\%  &   25.7\%      &   23.6\% \\ \hline
\end{tabular}

You can easily make a better table by omitting all vertical rules; double rules and thicker ones serve no purpose whatsoever. Also repeating % in every cell is a waste, because the columns are already stated to contain percentages.

\documentclass[10pt]{amsart}

\usepackage{booktabs,siunitx}

\setlength{\textwidth}{6.1in}
\setlength{\textheight}{9in}
\calclayout

\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{
 @{}
 l
 *{4}{S[table-format=2.1]}
 @{}
}
\toprule
\multicolumn{5}{c}{\textbf{Base Composition of DNA}} \\
\midrule
Organism        &\multicolumn{4}{c}{Percentage of base in organism's DNA} \\
\cmidrule(l){2-5}
                &   {adenine} &   {guanine} &   {cytosine}    &   {thymine} \\
\midrule
Maize           &   26.8      &   22.8  &   23.2      &   27.2 \\
Octopus         &   33.2      &   17.6  &   17.6      &   31.6 \\
Chicken         &   28.0      &   22.0  &   21.6      &   28.4 \\
Rat             &   28.6      &   21.4  &   20.5      &   28.4 \\
Human           &   29.3      &   20.7  &   20.0      &   30.0 \\
Grasshopper     &   29.3      &   20.5  &   20.7      &   29.3 \\
Sea urchin      &   32.8      &   17.7  &   17.3      &   32.1 \\
Wheat           &   27.3      &   22.7  &   22.8      &   27.1 \\
Yeast           &   31.3      &   18.7  &   17.1      &   32.9 \\
{\em E. coli}   &   24.7      &   26.0  &   25.7      &   23.6 \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

Some explanatory comments:

You can produce vertical rules of the desired thickness using !{\vrule width 1pt} instead of | (change 1pt to the desired value).
You can produce horizontal rules (similar to \hline) of the desired thickness using \noalign{\hrule height 1pt} instead of \hline (change 1pt to the desired value).
The \Cline command is similar to \cline, but has a mandatory argument allowing to specify the rule thicknes: \Cline{<length>}{<column1>-<column2>}; for example \Cline{2pt}{2-4} draws a horizontal rule 2pt thick spanning columns 2 to 4.
The tabularx package was used to guarantee that the table width equals \columnwidth. A new column type was defined with centered contents; \tabularxcolumn was also redefined to obtain m{...} type columns.
The rotated text was produced using a \parbox inside a \rotatebox.

Notice, however, that your table goes against some rules of typography: vertical rules can be avoided and rotated text is not a good practice (thinking on the reader). Perhaps you could try reformulating the layout?

Here's a possibility without vertical rules and with the features provided by booktabs:

\documentclass[twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{rotating}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\renewcommand\tabularxcolumn[1]{>{\small}m{#1}}
\newcolumntype{Y}{>{\centering\arraybackslash}X}
\newcommand\RotText[1]{\rotatebox{90}{\parbox{2cm}{\raggedright#1}}}
\begin{document}

{
\setlength\tabcolsep{1pt}
\noindent\begin{tabularx}{\columnwidth}{YYYYYYYYYY}
\cmidrule[1pt]{2-10}
\multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \multicolumn{5}{c}{Some text}  & \multicolumn{4}{c}{Some text} \\
\cmidrule(r){2-2}\cmidrule(r){3-3}\cmidrule(r){4-4}\cmidrule(r){5-5}
\cmidrule(r){6-6}\cmidrule(r){7-7}\cmidrule(r){8-8}\cmidrule(r){9-9}\cmidrule{10-10}
\multicolumn{1}{c}{} & \RotText{Some really long text} & \RotText{Some really long text}
  & \RotText{Some really long text} & \RotText{Some really long text} 
  & \RotText{Some really long text} & \RotText{Some really long text} 
  & \RotText{Some really long text} & \RotText{Some really long text} 
  & \RotText{Some really long text} \\
\cmidrule[1pt](r){1-1}\cmidrule[1pt](r){2-6}\cmidrule[1pt]{7-10}
some text & 11 & 44 & 11 & 54 & 34 & 54 & 23 & 11 & 12 \\
some text & 11 & 44 & 11 & 54 & 34 & 54 & 23 & 11 & 12 \\
\bottomrule[1pt]
\end{tabularx}
}

\lipsum[1-10]
\end{document}

enter image description here

[Tex/LaTex] Thick Lines on table

In the following, we define a new version of \cline as \Cline where you can provide the required thickness.

\documentclass{article}

\makeatletter
\def\Cline#1#2{\@Cline#1#2\@nil}
\def\@Cline#1-#2#3\@nil{%
  \omit
  \@multicnt#1%
  \advance\@multispan\m@ne
  \ifnum\@multicnt=\@ne\@firstofone{&\omit}\fi
  \@multicnt#2%
  \advance\@multicnt-#1%
  \advance\@multispan\@ne
  \leaders\hrule\@height#3\hfill
  \cr}
\makeatother


\begin{document}

\begin{tabular}{ccc}
  \hline
  A & B & C\\\hline
  D & E & F\\
  \Cline{1-2}{5.0pt}
  G & H & I\\
  \Cline{1-2}{2.0pt}
  J & K & L\\
  \cline{1-2}
\end{tabular}

\end{document}

As can see, you are in control of the thickness when you use \Cline.

enter image description here

And the non-thick standard \cline is always there.

Should need all your \clines (and other lines) to be thick, change \arrayrulewidth to some value you wish.

Best Answer

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Some explanatory comments:

[Tex/LaTex] Thick Lines on table

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