[Tex/LaTex] Spacing of text within a table cell

paragraphsspacing

I am inserting the following text inside the cell of a table

\documentclass[a4paper]{book}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage[pdftex, final]{graphicx}
\usepackage[francais]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{color}
\usepackage{marvosym} 
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{pdflscape}
\usepackage{color}

\setlength{\tabcolsep}{3pt}

\definecolor{female}{rgb}{1.0,0.2,0.2}
\definecolor{male} {rgb}{0.2,0.2,1.0}

\newcommand{\hgF}[1]{
\begin{description} \parskip0pt \parsep0pt 
\itemsep0pt \partopsep0pt
\item[{\color{female}{\Female}}]%
{\color{female}{{\Large {\bf #1}}}}%
\end{description}%
}

\begin{document}

\begin{landscape}
\begin{longtable}{| p{0.4cm} | p{3.5cm} | p{1.8cm} | p{3.2cm} | p{3.5cm} | p{1.8cm} | p{3.2cm} | p{1.8cm} | p{3.2cm} |}
\hline 
1 & \hgF{Louise Get} & 01/01/1847 & Revel (Haute-Garonne) & \hgF{Alphonse Martin} & 20/03/1865 & Revel (Haute-Garonne) & 07/10/1951 & Revel (Haute-Garonne) \\ [5pt]
\hline 
\end{longtable}
\end{landscape}

\end{document}

I end up with way too much white space before and after the "FirstName LastName" text. Which are the dimensions controlling this additional spacing?

Secondary question, how do I (simply) avoid stretching the other text across the column width (hence the \flushleft command I had earlier!!).

Thanks for your help

Best Answer

\Large is a switch, \bf is deprecated and \color{female} doesn't take an argument too. So you need

\newcommand{\hgF}[1]{%
\begin{description} [nosep,labelwidth=0.75em,leftmargin=\dimexpr\labelwidth+\labelsep,
                           before=\vspace{-0.7\baselineskip},after=\vspace{-\baselineskip}]
\item[\color{female}\Female]%
{\color{female}\Large\bfseries#1}%
\end{description}%
}

Further, you may need to have \raggedright columns with

\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{ragged2e}
\newcolumntype{P}[1]{>{\RaggedRight\arraybackslash}p{#1}}

With this we have:

\documentclass[a4paper]{book}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage[pdftex, final]{graphicx}
\usepackage[francais]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{color}
\usepackage{marvosym}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{pdflscape}
\usepackage{color}
\usepackage{enumitem}

\setlength{\tabcolsep}{3pt}

\definecolor{female}{rgb}{1.0,0.2,0.2}
\definecolor{male} {rgb}{0.2,0.2,1.0}

\newcommand{\hgF}[1]{%
\begin{description} [nosep,labelwidth=0.75em,leftmargin=\dimexpr\labelwidth+\labelsep,
                                 before=\vspace{-0.7\baselineskip},after=\vspace{-\baselineskip}]
\item[\color{female}\Female]%
{\color{female}\Large\bfseries#1}%
\end{description}%
}

\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{ragged2e}
\newcolumntype{P}[1]{>{\RaggedRight\arraybackslash}p{#1}}

\begin{document}

\begin{landscape}
\begin{longtable}{| P{0.4cm} | P{3.5cm} | P{1.8cm} | P{3.2cm} | P{3.5cm} | P{1.8cm} | P{3.2cm} | P{1.8cm} | P{3.2cm} |}
\hline
1 & \hgF{Louise Get} & 01/01/1847 & Revel (Haute-Garonne) & \hgF{Alphonse Martin} & 20/03/1865 & Revel (Haute-Garonne) & 07/10/1951 & Revel (Haute-Garonne) \\ [5pt]
\hline
\end{longtable}
\end{landscape}

\end{document}

enter image description here

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Vertical spacing of a table cell

I have solved this in the past by modifying the value of \arraystretch

you can do this by adding to your source :

{\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.2} %<- modify value to suit your needs
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|}
...
\end{tabular}
}

Edit:

Actually having researched this a bit more it seems that having equations in the cells has unexpected behaviour, where the space is increase disproportionally at the top (value set to 3 to start getting the space at the bottom):

tabular with arraystretch set to 3

more recently I have started to use the tabu package to replace all tables (from tabular to tabularx to longtable). It also provide a few more controls. in this case the \tabulinesep has a much more appropirate effect on the results:

\documentclass[preview]{standalone}
   \usepackage{tabu}
   \begin{document}
   {\tabulinesep=1.2mm
   \begin{tabu} {|c|c|}
       \hline
       Cylindrical & $\displaystyle{{1 \over \rho}{\partial \over \partial\rho}\left(\rho {\partial f \over \partial \rho}\right)
       + {1 \over \rho^2}{\partial^2 f \over \partial \phi^2}  + {\partial^2 f \over \partial z^2}}$\\\hline
       Spherical & $\displaystyle{{1 \over r^2}{\partial \over \partial r}\!\left(r^2 {\partial f \over \partial r}\right)
       \!+\!{1 \over r^2\!\sin\theta}{\partial \over \partial \theta}\!\left(\sin\theta {\partial f \over \partial \theta}\right)
       \!+\!{1 \over r^2\!\sin^2\theta}{\partial^2 f \over \partial \phi^2}}$\\\hline
   \end{tabu}}
\end{document}

which produces the following result:

tabu with tabulinesep set to 1.2mm

[Tex/LaTex] Reduced word spacing when wrapping text in a cell

You probably don't need justified text here, using \raggedright setting avoids stretching the spaces.

Please always post complete documents not just fragments, as below..

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{array}

\begin{document}

\begin{table}
\setlength\extrarowheight{2pt}
\begin{tabular}{p{1.6cm} *5{>{\raggedright\arraybackslash}p{1.8cm}}} \hline 
Wavelength (nm) & Rb trap depth ($\mu$K) &  Cs trap depth ($\mu$K) &
Heating rate ($\mu$K/s) & Selectivity & Sustainability (s) \\
1&2&3&4&5&6
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{document}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Vertical spacing of a table cell

[Tex/LaTex] Reduced word spacing when wrapping text in a cell

Related Question