[Tex/LaTex] Prevent supertabular* from breaking too early

page-breakingsupertabulartables

I have a similar question as ipavlic, that is, the break of a long table by the supertabular package comes too soon. The solution proposed by egreg works well for the supertabular environment, however, being a LateX noob I cannot get it to work for the supertabular* environment.

Minimal working example

    \documentclass[a4paper,12pt,oneside]{article}
    \usepackage{supertabular}

    \makeatletter 
    \def\mod@estimate@lineht{% 
      \ST@lineht=\arraystretch \baslineskp 
      %\global\advance\ST@lineht by 1\p@ 
      \ST@stretchht\ST@lineht\advance\ST@stretchht-\baslineskp 
      \ifdim\ST@stretchht<\z@\ST@stretchht\z@\fi 
      \ST@trace\tw@{Average line height: \the\ST@lineht}% 
      \ST@trace\tw@{Stretched line height: \the\ST@stretchht}% 
    } 
    \newenvironment{strictsupertabular*} 
      {\let\estimate@lineht\mod@estimate@lineht\supertabular*} 
      {\endsupertabular*} 
    \makeatother

    \begin{document}

    \tablefirsthead{\hline\hline a & b & c\\\hline}
    \tablehead{\hline\hline a & b & c\\\hline}
    \tabletail{\hline\hline}
    \tablelasttail{\hline\hline}
    \topcaption{caption}
    \centering
    \begin{supertabular*}{1 \columnwidth}{@{\extracolsep{\fill}} c c c}
    1 & 2 & 3\\
    4 & 5 & 6\\
    \end{supertabular*}

    \end{document}

However, when I change supertabular* to strictsupertabular* I get an error. Is it possible to define a strictsupertabular environment that has tabular* functionality?

Best Answer

[OP's answer, moved from question]

I figured it out, the following definition of the new strictsupertabular* environment works

    \newenvironment{strictsupertabular*} 
      {\let\estimate@lineht\mod@estimate@lineht\@nameuse{supertabular*}} 
      {\@nameuse{endsupertabular*}}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Prevent xtab breaking table too soon

xtabular overestimates the height of each row by 1pt; when the rows contain tall p cells, this is almost negligible; however, when the table has "small" rows, this becomes evident.

A supertabular based "solution" is the following strictsupertabular environment

\makeatletter 
\def\mod@estimate@lineht{% 
  \ST@lineht=\arraystretch \baslineskp 
  %\global\advance\ST@lineht by 1\p@ 
  \ST@stretchht\ST@lineht\advance\ST@stretchht-\baslineskp 
  \ifdim\ST@stretchht<\z@\ST@stretchht\z@\fi 
  \ST@trace\tw@{Average line height: \the\ST@lineht}% 
  \ST@trace\tw@{Stretched line height: \the\ST@stretchht}% 
} 
\newenvironment{strictsupertabular} 
  {\let\estimate@lineht\mod@estimate@lineht\supertabular} 
  {\endsupertabular} 
\makeatother

that needs lines that are never taller than a normal line of text.

Another defect shared by supertabular and xtab is that the column width is not the same across pages (this doesn't happen with longtable).

[Tex/LaTex] Prevent environments from breaking in two pages

For your theorem-like structures, it's better to use a dedicated package (amsthm or ntheorem are the favorite ones, and there's a fron-end for both of them: thmtools). Using either of those packages you can easily define theorem styles and numbered or unnumbered structures that use those styles.

In the following example I used the amsthm package to define an unnumbered structure having similar specifications as the definition environment of your code snippet. The \newline used in the sixth mandatory argument causes the head of the theorem to appear on a line of its own, but doesn't prevent an undesired page break between the head and the body. For this, I used \needspace from the needspace package:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{needspace}
\usepackage{amsthm}

\newtheoremstyle{definition}
  {\topsep}
  {\topsep}
  {\itshape}
  {0pt}
  {\bfseries}
  {\newline}
  {0pt\needspace{2\baselineskip}}%
  {\thmname{\underline{#1}}~\thmnote{(#3)}}
\theoremstyle{definition}
\newtheorem*{definition}{Definition}

\begin{document}

\vspace*{43\baselineskip}% just to test that no separation is produced
\begin{definition}
Test
\end{definition}

\end{document}

As a final remark, not related to the question, underlined text is usually not considered a good typographical practice; in your case, using bold-faced font and underlining seems superfluous.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Prevent xtab breaking table too soon

[Tex/LaTex] Prevent environments from breaking in two pages

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