Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ Excel-like tables of experimental data

[Cham]

Sorry if I sounded under stress. I was actually excited, since I solved most of my problems !

Now, I believe that the align environment is very natural, to align the tables to their left.

So the only thing missing is that double line which is too long. Instead of using the \hhline, I would prefer to keep the small gap. I think it looks nice. However, how to adapt the line to the upper block ?

[Johannes_B]

Align is a math environment to align, for example, equal signs vertically in different lines.

Did you try my proposal?

[Cham]

Not yet. And I'm not familiar with minipage.

Can you offer an example, just to align two tables ?

And what about the double lines (with a gap) without using hhline ?

[Johannes_B]

Why do you want to avoid package hhline? It was developed just for that purpose of doing what you want to do.

You don't need anything to have the tables aligned, minipages just to make the upper and lower stuck together. You can center the minipage.

[Cham]

Sorry, I don't understand about the minipage. Can you be more specific ?

An example would help.

[Johannes_B]

Code: Select all

\documentclass[10pt,twoside]{revtex4}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[french]{babel}
\usepackage{microtype}
\usepackage{hhline}
\usepackage{showframe}
\usepackage{multirow}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage[separate-uncertainty=true]{siunitx}
\sisetup{output-decimal-marker = {,}}

\begin{document}

\section*{A table of results}

\begin{center}
\noindent
\begin{minipage}{.8\linewidth}
	\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.5}
	\begin{tabular}{l|c|c|c|c|c|}
		\cline{2-6}
		& \multicolumn{5}{c|}{Tableau 2.  Caractéristiques physiques d'un petit cylindre de métal}                                             \\ \cline{2-6}
		& \multicolumn{1}{>{\centering}p{6em}|}{$d$}
		& \multicolumn{1}{>{\centering}p{6em}|}{$\Delta d$}
		& \multicolumn{1}{>{\centering}p{6em}|}{$\ell$}
		& \multicolumn{1}{>{\centering}p{6em}|}{$\Delta\ell$}
		& \multicolumn{1}{>{\centering}p{6em}|}{$m$}
		\\ \cline{2-6}
		& \multicolumn{2}{c|}{\si{\mm}}
		& \multicolumn{2}{c|}{\si{\mm}}
		& \si{\g}
		\\ \cline{2-6}
		& \multicolumn{2}{c|}{–}
		& \multicolumn{2}{c|}{–}
		& 0,1 \\
%		\hline\hline
		\hhline{b-=====}
%		\hline
		\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Règle} & 15 & 1 & 22 & 1 & \multirow{3}{*}{49,3} \\ \cline{1-5}
		\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Pied à coulisse} & 15,4 & 0,1 & 22,6 & 0,1 & \\ \cline{1-5}
		\multicolumn{1}{|l|}{Palmer} & 15,42 & 0,03 & 22,57 & 0,02 & \\ \hline
	\end{tabular} \\[10pt]

	\begin{tabular}{|l|}
		\hline
		\multicolumn{1}{|c|}{Légende} \\ \hline
		$d$ est le diamètre du cylindre. \\
		$\ell$ est la longueur du cylindre. \\
		$m$ est la masse du cylindre, selon la balance à fléaux. \\ \hline
	\end{tabular}
\end{minipage}
\end{center}

\end{document}

[Cham]

Thanks a lot, Johannes, it's really appreciated !

I'll study this later today.

EDIT : Just a simple question : the align environment works too, even if it was designed for maths. Why the mini page is a better way to align the tables ?

[Johannes_B]

Maths is for maths.

I know your documents are math-heavy. If you have a long set of aligned equations, you might want to allow this set to break pages. This will affext all sets of equations, even the two tabular environments. Hence, they might split to different pages, which makes a legend (non-sticky) kind of useless.

[Cham]

So does that mean that the minipage will not break the legend from its main table ?

Also, if I want to display several tables (say two relatively small tables), is it a good idea to define both of them inside the same mini page, so their legends are all aligned together to the left ?

[Johannes_B]

If the table and the legend are within a minpage, they won't split. As far as LaTeX is concerned, the minipage is like one letter, like a bix X or a big y.

If you want to keep both tables together, put them in one minipage. If you want the tables and legends to stick together, but let the tables (tabular and legend) split, but the constructs in different minipages.

Since a table (data, information, a box for latex) can be quite large, they are usually put in a floating environment (called table, yes; this is confusing) to ensure the usual nice flow of text.