[Tex/LaTex] Strange indent using tabular in titlingpage

memoirspacingtables

I need to create a simple problem description page for my thesis. This will also be the title page of the document. I'm using the memoir class. I tried to use the tabular environment to align some fields, but it produces some annoying indentation I'm not able to remove.

Here's an illustration of what I mean

enter image description here

and here's a minimal working example

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{memoir}

\begin{document}

\begin{titlingpage}

\begin{tabular}{p{5cm}l}
Project title:          & Title \\
Student's name:         & Name\\
Problem description:    & \\
\end{tabular}

\vspace{4ex}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...
\vspace{4ex}

\begin{tabular}{@{}p{5cm}l}
\noindent Assignment given:     & 01.01.2012 \\
\noindent Supervisor:           & Name\\
\noindent Co-Supervisor:        & Name  \\
\end{tabular}

\end{titlingpage}

\end{document}

Best Answer

The \noindent should also precede the tabular structures:

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{memoir}

\begin{document}

\begin{titlingpage}

\noindent% <----------------- added
\begin{tabular}{@{}p{5cm}l}% <--- modified column specification
Project title:          & Title \\
Student's name:         & Name\\
Problem description:    & \\
\end{tabular}

\vspace{4ex}
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...
\vspace{4ex}

\noindent% <----------------- added
\begin{tabular}{@{}p{5cm}l}
\noindent Assignment given:     & 01.01.2012 \\
\noindent Supervisor:           & Name\\
\noindent Co-Supervisor:        & Name  \\
\end{tabular}

\end{titlingpage}

\end{document}

A tabular starts a paragraph, and therefore also inserts a \parindent space. \noindent removes it, as expected. Using \hspace*{-\parindent} would too.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Use column-separator & (ampersand) inside \newenvironment

The problem is that the \begin{...} and \end{...} pair commands automatically create a "group" so that, in effect, the & and \\ are "out of scope" for the tabular, while inside the "production" environment they just show up at a place where the compiler is not expecting them.

A second problem with your definitions is that, even if they would work, they would be adding an extra \\ at the end of the tabular, adding an unwanted space at the end. Perhaps some more appropriate definitions would be

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}

\newcommand{\production}[1]{#1 ::= &}
\newenvironment{grammar}{\tabular{p{3cm}l}}{\endtabular}

\begin{document}
\begin{grammar}
\production{XmlStartTag} ... \\
\production{XmlOtherTag} ... \\
\production{XmlEndTag} ...
\end{grammar}
\end{document}

Note no \\ at the end of the last production. Also in the definition of the grammar you don't need to repeat the work of \begin/\end, and you can instead directly use \tabular and \endtabular.

[Tex/LaTex] Titlingpage use in memoir class

This is covered explicitly in the memoir documentation (chapter Four: Titles, p 61):

When one of the standard classes is used with the titlepage option, \maketitle puts the title elements on an unnumbered page and then starts a new page numbered page 1. The standard classes also provide a titlepage environment which starts a new unnumbered page and at the end starts a new page numbered 1. You are entirely responsible for specifying exactly what and where is to go on this title page. If \maketitle is used within the titlepage environment it will start yet another page.

This class provides neither a titlepage option nor a titlepage environment; instead it provides the titlingpage environment which falls between the titlepage option and the titlepage environment. Within the titlingpage environment you can use the \maketitle command, and any others you wish. The titlingpage pagestyle is used, and at the end it starts another ordinary page numbered one. The titlingpage pagestyle is initially defined to be the same as the empty pagestyle.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Use column-separator & (ampersand) inside \newenvironment

[Tex/LaTex] Titlingpage use in memoir class

Related Question