[Tex/LaTex] Vertical spacing between parboxes

boxesspacing

I'm using \parbox for creating a flexible table-like structure of paragraphs as in the following minimal working example:

\documentclass[a4paper]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{polyglossia}                % language package
\setmainlanguage{english}               % select language for polyglossia
\begin{document}
  \parbox{20mm}{Some Text in the first column} \parbox{30mm}{Some Text in the second column}\par
  \parbox{20mm}{Some Text in the first column} \parbox{30mm}{Some Text in the second column}\par
  \parbox{20mm}{Some Text in the first column} \parbox{30mm}{Some Text in the second column}\par
\end{document}

enter image description here

The line spacing within the parboxes is as desired, but the vertical spacing between the parboxes seams to be somehow close to 0pt. Which is the correct length to check and adjust here to get a space between the parboxes?

Best Answer

Add a \strut to the beginning and end of the \parbox. The top and bottom of the \parbox are flush-fitting to the text, so if you need the normal dead-zone space above and below the line, a \strut extends the text row vertically to the extent allocated by normal line spacing.

Placing a flush-fitting box around each \parbox demonstrates the problem with the unstrutted \parboxes, as shown here:

\documentclass[a4paper]{scrartcl}
%\usepackage{polyglossia}                % language package
%\setmainlanguage{english}               % select language for polyglossia
\let\svparbox\parbox
\fboxsep=-\fboxrule
\renewcommand\parbox[3][c]{\fbox{\svparbox[#1]{#2}{#3}}}
\begin{document}
  \parbox{20mm}{Some Text in the first column} \parbox{30mm}{Some Text in the second column}\par
  \parbox{20mm}{Some Text in the first column} \parbox{30mm}{Some Text in the second column}\par
  \parbox{20mm}{Some Text in the first column} \parbox{30mm}{Some Text in the second column}\par
\end{document}

enter image description here

Here is a fix by adding a \strut to the beginning/end of the \parbox..

\documentclass[a4paper]{scrartcl}
%\usepackage{polyglossia}                % language package
%\setmainlanguage{english}               % select language for polyglossia
\begin{document}
  \parbox{20mm}{\strut Some Text in the first column\strut} \parbox{30mm}{\strut Some Text in the second column\strut}\par
  \parbox{20mm}{\strut Some Text in the first column\strut} \parbox{30mm}{\strut Some Text in the second column\strut}\par
  \parbox{20mm}{\strut Some Text in the first column\strut} \parbox{30mm}{\strut Some Text in the second column\strut}\par
\end{document}

enter image description here

If you always wanted to strut your \parboxes, you could redefine it:

\let\svparbox\parbox
\renewcommand\parbox[3][c]{\svparbox[#1]{#2}{\strut#3\strut}}

Safer though, would be to create your own macro:

\newcommand\sparbox[3][c]{\parbox[#1]{#2}{\strut#3\strut}}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] \parbox vs. minipage: Differences in applicability

The main reason I see to use minipage over \parbox is to allow verbatim (\verb, verbatim, etc.) text inside the box (unless, of course, you also put the minipage inside a macro argument).

EDIT Here are other differences between minipage and \parbox (from the comments to Yiannis' answer and from looking at the source code of both these macros in source2e).

A first difference, as already mentioned by lockstep in his question, is in the footnote treatment: minipage handles them by putting them at the bottom of the box while footnotes are lost in a \parbox (to avoid this, you must resort to the \footnotemark/footnotetext trick):

alt text

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\parbox[t]{3cm}{text\footnote{parbox footnote}}
\begin{minipage}[t]{3cm}text\footnote{minipage footnote}\end{minipage}
\end{document}

A second difference is in that minipage resets the \@listdepth counter, meaning that, inside a minipage, you don't have to worry about the list nesting level when using them. Here's an example which illustrates the point:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begin{list}{}{}\item\begin{list}{}{}\item\begin{list}{}{}\item\begin{list}{}{}\item
    \begin{list}{}{}\item\begin{list}{}{}
  \item %\parbox{5cm}{\begin{list}{}{}\item \end{list}}% error
  \item %\begin{minipage}{5cm}\begin{list}{}{}\item \end{list}\end{minipage}% no error
\end{list}\end{list}\end{list}\end{list}\end{list}\end{list}
\end{document}

A third difference is that minipage sets the boolean \@minipagefalse which in turn deactivates \addvspace if it's the first thing to occur inside a minipage. This means that minipage will have better spacing and allow better alignment compared to \parbox in some cases like the following (left is minipage, right is \parbox):

alt text

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Pros: \begin{minipage}[t]{3cm}\begin{itemize}\item first \item second%
    \end{itemize}\end{minipage}
Cons: \parbox[t]{3cm}{\begin{itemize}\item first \item second\end{itemize}}
\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] How to define the default vertical distance between nodes

I don't really get the question so I hope this is what you wanted. If you include a full document (such that we copy paste and see the problem on our systems) things are much more easier.

Here, you can change the default setting within a scope but your block style had a node distance which was resetting every time it is issued. I've made it 2mm such that we can see the difference easier.

\documentclass[tikz]{standalone}
\usetikzlibrary{arrows,shapes.geometric,positioning}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[decision/.style={diamond, draw, text width=4.5em, text badly centered, node distance=3.5cm, inner sep=0pt},
                    block/.style   ={rectangle, draw, text width=6em, text centered, rounded corners, minimum height=4em, minimum height=2em},
                    cloud/.style   ={draw, ellipse, minimum height=2em},
                    line/.style    ={draw,-latex'},
                    node distance = 1cm, 
                    auto]
    \node [block] (1st) {1st};
    \node [block, right= of 1st]  (2nd1) {2nd1};
\begin{scope}[node distance=2mm and 10mm]%Here we change it for everything inside this scope
    \node [block, above= of 2nd1] (2nd2) {2nd2};
    \node [block, below= of 2nd1] (2nd3) {2nd3};
    \node [block, right= of 2nd1] (3rd1) {3rd1};
    \node [block, above= of 3rd1] (3rd2) {3rd2};
    \node [block, above= of 3rd2] (3rd3) {3rd3};
\end{scope}
    \node [block, below= of 3rd1] (3rd4) {3rd4};
    \node [block, below= of 3rd4] (3rd5) {3rd5};

    \path [line] (1st) -- (2nd1);
    \path [line] (2nd1) -- (2nd2);
    \path [line] (2nd1) -- (2nd3);
    \path [line] (2nd2) -- (3rd3);
    \path [line] (2nd1) -- (3rd1);
    \path [line] (1st) -- (2nd1);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

enter image description here

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] \parbox vs. minipage: Differences in applicability

[Tex/LaTex] How to define the default vertical distance between nodes

Related Question