Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ Vertical Alignment of Equations within a Table

[Phredd]

I am writing up a university project, and I want to create a table with the left column containing Feynman diagrams (which I have drawn using the feynmp package) and the right column containing equations. When I do this, however, the equations are vertically aligned in the bottom of the cell, and I can’t figure out how to change this, so that they align with the centre of the diagram in the same row.

Here is some sample code which I hope demonstrates the problem without writing out my whole report.

Code: Select all

\begin{table*}[t]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|}
\hline
\textbf{feynmp diagram goes here}
&
$\begin{aligned} I &= \\ &\frac{D}{4} \end{aligned}$
\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table*}

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi Phredd,

welcome to the forum!

Sure, there's no need to post your whole report. But there's something between a small code snippet and the whole report, right? If you would post a compilable example, a reader could test and improve it in the desired way. Without compiling, it stays a bit theoretical.

So, without the Feynman diagram (it would have been nice to see it), I guess it just has the base line for vertical alignment at the bottom. The base line for the aligned math environment is at it's center (but can be changed to top or bottom line). In the table, the base lines are aligned next to each other. So you see the diagram going upwards above the base line, the math text at the base line stays low. It's base line alignment, not top alignment.

You can change it in different ways, such as using \raisebox, the adjustbox package, or the stackengine package.

With stackengine loaded, you can use \belowbaseline[0pt]{your diagram} and \belowbaseline[0pt]{$math formula$} for top alignment. Or \Centerstack for middle alignment.

In contrast to m columns, you don't need a fixed width.

centered.png (905 Bytes) Viewed 7230 times

Done by:

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article} 
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{stackengine}
\begin{document}
\begin{table*}[t]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|}
  \hline
  \Centerstack{\includegraphics{diagram}}
    &
  $\begin{aligned} I &= \\
  &\frac{D}{4} \end{aligned}$\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table*}
\end{document}

Here with top alignment:

mwe.png (948 Bytes) Viewed 7230 times

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article} 
\usepackage[demo]{graphicx}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{stackengine}
\begin{document}
\begin{table*}[t]
\centering
\begin{tabular}{|c|c|}
  \hline
  \belowbaseline[0pt]{\includegraphics{diagram}}
    &
  \belowbaseline[0pt]{$\begin{aligned} I &= \\
    &\frac{D}{4} \end{aligned}$}\\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table*}
\end{document}

Stefan

[Johannes_B]

Use m-columns with a fixed width.

Code: Select all

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{mathtools}
\begin{document}
\begin{table*}[t]
	\centering
	\begin{tabular}{|m{.5\linewidth}|m{.4\linewidth}|}
		\hline
		\textbf{feynmp diagram goes here}
		\rule{1cm}{8cm}
		&
		$\begin{aligned} I &= \\ &\frac{D}{4} \end{aligned}$
		\\
		\hline
	\end{tabular}
\end{table*}
\end{document}